Win mystery prizes from Vance Tan Online™ now! Answer the “Guess What” mystery questions by sending your answers straight to vancetann@gmail.com. Quiz period is from 5 January 2009 to 31 January 2009.

Terms and conditions:
1. Participants cannot be a winner of Vance Tan Online™ for the past month.
2. Each participants can only answer once while each Vance Tan Online™’s Readers Club member can answer twice.
3. Participants should send answers only by email to vancetann@gmail.com.
4. In your email, you should include your name, ways to contact you, your answers and other information necessary.
5. Quiz ends on 31 January 2009 at 12.00 am GMT +8 Brunei Time, quiz submissions after that will be automatically rejected.

Guess the following items:

Tell-A-Friend about road safety is still on: The tell a friend about road safety is still on-the-go, so if you haven’t informed a friend formally about road safety, please do for the benefit of everybody.

A few road accidents cases has been reported here and there last year during the festive month of December. Many cases were due to the ignorant drivers which could not resist making phone calls or SMS-ing while driving on the roads. Since a brand new year has arrived, let’s make this year better than the last one by being safe on the road.

Parking inappropriately may imposed hazardous situations

Designers choice: Wanting to learn photoshop and mingle around with cool texts? Dzine Blog has the perfect solution to 25 Amazing Photoshop 3D Text Effects tutorials.

With 42k ranking on Google Search, one of the most popular search engines in the Internet, Dzine Blog has the top ten searches all over with different varities of topics which is ready for viewing. Now, if you would like to join Dzine Blog’s 4886 Subscribers at the moment, just head over to www.dzineblog.com and subscribe instantly as a subscriber.

Faces of 2008: Maths and Commerce teachers of PJN

Faces of 2008: Science teacher of PJN

If you were one of the participants of OGDC Science Camp, you would not feel that your holiday was filled with boredom but instead filled with full of creamery and goodies as The Oil and Gas Discovery Centre always gives a full-swing of exciting activities to students, which was why it is still one of the “most trusted by parents” holiday places.

Science Campers singing happily to the melody

Auji wanting to bite the chicken

Confused camper: Which model should I buy?

A lot of MSN Personal Messages were screaming on hesitation to meet up with their friends but some even had the ability to lose their school badge in the midst of the much relaxed holiday. Chatters comprising of secondary students especially who had not been online was online since yesterday to ask on what to bring the next day while some primary kids would say they were quite excited to put their wings out for the next day to school.

Particular discomfortness started to eager amongst working communities as they would expect more traffic on this very first day of the “Back-To-School” fever. Strategies were planned since yesterday despite a few impassable roads between Kuala Belait and Seria areas due to huge road renovations projects.

Soon Lee Mega Mart, a quite popular shopping mart around the Belait District whereby most people go for their shopping ammenities was jam-packed from early morning till late night for the preparations of the new school term. Some were buying plain T-Shirts due to oversized body while others were picking the items as listed down on their shopping lists.

A customer of Soon Lee trying out a white T-Shirt

Parents busy choosing suitable clothes for their children

Photo taken in Lumut on January 1, 2009 at 3:50 am. Edited as a display.

Updated at 3:08 PM. A big thank you to all my avid readers who have keep in support of vancetan.com because without readers, there won’t be writers and publishers. As of 3:08 pm today, vancetan.com exactly received 50 million unique visits which includes 2009 foreign hits *such a coincidence*. Special thanks would go to supporters, partners and advertisers of vancetan.com for making this 50 million unique visit a success.

To celebrate this great event, vancetan.com will be printing another batch of exclusive souvenirs for free distributions.

The sleeping techniques depends on the individuality and perspective thinking of certain people, and those sleeping techniques were thought to have an impact on how your personality is like.

A flower first comes as a seedlings, being black or brown in colour, tossed anywhere on the black fertile soil. The owner has to water the seeds everyday, take care of the plants and crop the dangling parts into shape for few months. That includes putting fertilisers in between carrying out the processes of developing the plant.

Flowering plants with high contrast

Long stretch of newly flowered plants

Here, there and everywhere

The guy behind these beautiful flowers

Seashells collectibles and a bucket of freshly melted egg

The solidified matter on the site itself

To cross from one end of the site to the other, bridges will be the aid

A long stretch of watery area with foams of unwashed rain water

Apparently, this was used to grill barbeque

Stacks of concrete stone blocks to give a better view of the whole scenery

Souvenirs like crazy: Vance Tan Online’s souvenir and sponsored mini gifts have been distributed like crazy for the past month with a few variety of gifts to choose from ranging from exclusively printed pens to Me-To-You’s.

Adeb with Vance Tan Online sponsored Me-To-You accompanied with an exclusive pen

Jiran Empat Penjuru Drama: Two P2F Contestants and artistes Adeb and Hill can be seen on Radio Televisyen Brunei for their new Drama Series of “Jiran Empat Penjuru”, which will feature Adeb and Hill as Singaporean and Malaysian tourists respectively.

The first shooting of the “Jiran Empat Penjuru” was dued to happen this yesterday afternoon but was postponed to this afternoon due to certain unevacuatable circumstances. The duos will be expected to arrive for the shooting today with tourist-like looks with cargo pants, shades, trainers caps and cameras.

This morning’s new year was definitely a morning without sleep, undoubtly, as many would be having barbeques, massive family gatherings and busy texting families and friends wishing them a juicy 2009.

Updated 10.00 pm: Vance Tan’s inbox this morning itself at 12.00:02 was fully flooded with text greetings which I think was not the “Send To All” type. Well, as some of you were requesting for me to put up some interesting text greetings, we’ll just do that for you.

Hilmi Zaini says: Happy New Year my friend. May your resolutions be met and I wish you the best of everything =)

Veroney Sahlan says: Hey my dearest bro! HNY, as in Happy New Year! Welcome to 2009 as you’re leaving 2008 now. May this year bring lots of fun, exciting experiences and success in life to you.

Ah Hiong2 says: Enjoy but don’t stay too late. Sleep late then wake up late tomorrow loh. Go brunch and not breakfast. hehe ;-)

Kenny Wong and Family says: New Year us the time to unfold new horizons and realise new dreams, to rediscover the strength and faith within you, to rejoice in simple pleasures and gear up for new challenges. Wishing you a truly fulfilling 2009!

These are the new 2009 year’s fireworks design found in Brunei especially for New Year’s Eve. Apparently, there were about 100 more firework designs but the only a few noticable designs that Vance Tan Online and crew has voted were the designs below:

Octopus-orangey fireworks: These cute orangey blasts came early at 12.00 midnight when the clock strikes twelve. The fireworks first went up like a boomerang and splitted carefully to give this amazing octopus shaped structure. Some may find it like a hair or wig dangling in the dark sky.

Sparkle like diamonds: The sparkle-like-diamonds fireworks design is actually derived from the look or appearance of the firework itself. Although the sparkles may not be as yellowish and as clear as diamond, their appealing glow surely brightened the un-mooned night.

Fountain Works: This type of firework structure only happens when a rising firework is emerging high up to the sky followed by a slight drizzle of downpour when the firework was being released. The speed of the firework should also be maximum to get this kind of effect.

Dots and scratches styled fireworks: Getting no stars on your new year’s eve? These dots on the sky with intensive reddish colour would aid in brightening the silent night when a smiling star did not turn up.

This shiny silhouette was casted this morning at about 6.45 am in the morning and it resembles the apprearance of both a sun and a moon, might this be the indication for a great start to the new year 2009, Year of The Ox?

The casted view of the morning silhouette

New update on New Year’s Eve: I was just back from a dinner gathering at Soon Lee’s Ayamku Seafood, where mouth-watery delicacies were served in a much relax and entertained environment. Lucky for my dinner this evening, we were welcomed into the V.I.P Lounge with two tables equipped with fully furnished entertainment and more over, it was air-conditioned to a suitable body homeostatis.

Yam basket, now not in basket, but on plates

Waiting excitedly for the awesomely prepared spicy and sour soup

Prettily decorated dish for the eater’s pleasure

Nope, its non-alcoholic! It’s sparkling juice

Big family, strong establishment

Chinese New Year in 2009 will slightly take place earlier next year, which will be on 26th January 2009. Preparations could be seen as early yesterday when Vance Tan Online™ crew visitied a resident to interview and ask about the views of the upcoming Chinese New Year celebrations.

Songs relating to the Chinese New Year has been now “on the go” streaming through the fully-packed malls, superstores and department stores bringing the spice of the new Year of the Ox. Now, the designer craze may begin on how your new living room could be given a full blast and transformed to have a new, but simple look.

Before the make over

After the make over

As a matter of fact, making over your living room look does not need really special expertise, all you need is your old cushion sofa. Using the “throw over technique”, your sofa set will look perfectly nice and unique after the whole makeover. Using materials from storeroom, or any unused materials will just do. An example is as shown on the picture above, which is a VANCE Sofa Set, which is being transformed to make its jingle way for the brand new year tomorrow, 1st January 2009.

When we speak about re-designing your home, people would always have the impression of a huge amount of money spend on unneccesary design equipments and utilities. Initially, you have the element of great design, so why waste the money to buy new sets? All you need is just creativity and observation for your uniquely “renovated-look” house for the new year 2009.

b.mobile Promotions till 31 January 2009: Using the 089 promo number, intetnational calls charges could be adjusted in your hands starting from as low as $0.20 up to as high as $0.50.

*Click promo banner to enlarge*

Readers can now be basic cooks at your home kitchen by daily reading vancetan.com. Today, we will bring you another great recipe: the making of “The Pizza”. Now, you can have the choice in your hands, no more menu picking, put the only ingredients that you want with four easy steps.

Step 1: Buy any flat pizza base from the superstore of your choice. The cheapest Vance has ever seen was at SupaSave valued at B$1.30.

Step 2: Cut the pizza base into halves according to the size of your oven.

Step 3: Spread some tomato paste and the ingredients that you would like to taste on your pizza. Some examples would be tomatoes, pinapples, cheese and sausages.

Step 4: Put your pizza into the oven for a 15 minutes toast to have the best ever-tasted homemade pizza.

*Vance Tan would like to say words of appreciation to Ah Hiong Yi2 for the menu and for the great pizza catered.

Giving your hard disk a special health checkup: Viruses on computers seems to spread more and more as spammers and hackers began their motive to destroy pc properties. At Vance Tan office, a few images were unreadable anymore as the virus known as HAHA.js, apparently transmitted through someone’s thumbdrive had a special script to cause the damage.

It is therefore advisable to computer users out there to frequently check their computers to ensure they are in the stable healthy condition. All you have to do is:

1. Click “My Computer” on your PC Desktop

2. Point your mouse to the “C Drive” and right click

3. Select the “Properties Tab” and then click the “Tools” button.

4. Next, click the “Check Now” button

5. Click “Start” and the laptop may prompt you to reboot your computer.

Often, this process takes quite a long time and it is only advisable to check your computer when you are not using them urgently.

As a bonus to celebrate the past few months of 2008, and get together in a much meaningful way, a steamboat buffet gathering was held yesterday in presence of Vance Tan, the owner of vancetan.com, Edwin Brunei, owner of edwinbrunei.blogspot.com and a whole lot of people to join in the mini gathering.

Preparations started as early as 10.00 in the morning until 12.00 noon and was continued from 1.00 up till 4.30 in the afternoon.

The steamboat buffet gathering commenced softly at 7.00 pm with the arrival of guests with cliche-looking dresscodes although the night was not given a theme. A few activities trailed, which amongst one of them was the “Guess What” game whereby each attendee were asked to guess part of a place snapped down in a picture.

Vege MeatBalls hand-crafted for hours

Fresh veges for tossing in the steamboat

A tomato being red and proud on a food cover

X-clusive greenies on fishballs

New menu: Vegetable stalk dipped in chili platter

Alas, the long waited steamboat with Tom Yam

As most of the performances were great and fabulous, there are no special comments.

The grand prize: Toyota Vios

Fau the Best!

The P2F Artists Performances

Hilmi Zaini, still Vance Tan’s favourite artist

Fau belting out Beban Fikiran by Sri Nazrina

The moment of truth at the JPCC

The trios waiting anxiously for the results

Glory with light sparkling everywhere

The V.I.Ps a.k.a Guest of Honours celebrating the P2F Finals

Same goes to the crowd at the JPCC