Photo courtesy: http://airworm23.blogspot.com

If you’re curious about what it is like to watch Singapore’s basketball pride in action, in a stadium full of enthusiastic fans, while enjoying cold beer courtesy of Brewerkz, here’s your chance to find out!

This week, I’m giving away TEN pairs of tickets to the upcoming game where the Singapore Slingers meet Barangay Ginebra Kings in what is set to be the most explosive game of the season!

We played against Ginebra last season, and boy, was it a physical match! And now, they’re back with a vengeance! It’s going to be interesting to see how our new Slingers team deals with their play, and hopefully, defeat Ginebra again!

But the Slingers need your support, your cheers, your applause! Tickets are already on sale now, but since we know nothing beats FREE tickets and FREE beer, the Slingers Management and Brewerkz Management have kindly agreed to sponsor this giveaway!

Date: Wednesday, 30 Sept 2009
Tip-off time: 2000 hrs
Venue: Singapore Indoor Stadium

To win one of the 10 pairs of tickets for the game and join me for the match, all you have to do is to post a comment on this blog entry, and complete the following sentence:

I want to watch the Slingers in action because: _____________. (You can write a sentence or an essay, I’ll read them all!)

Do leave your valid email address so I can contact you for ticketing details!

All 10 winners will be informed by Monday, 28 Sept 2009!

Wait! That’s not the end of it yet!

Anyone who blogs (you can even start up a new blog to participate in this), can stand to win a Dinner for 4 at Brewerkz!

All you have to do is to attend the game, either by winning tickets through this contest or buying them from SISTIC, and blog about the game! After you’re done with your blog entry, submit your link here. Best entry as selected by judging panel wins! All bloggers who participate will also be given 4 tickets (for yourself and to give away on your blog entry) for any chosen game on the Slingers’ game schedule after 7 October. So please blog about the tickets that you’re gonna give away too!

Terms and Conditions: You have to insert the logos of Singapore Slingers and Brewerkz in your entry, with hyperlinks to the Slingers and Brewerkz websites.

Closing date for submission of blog entries: 7 Oct 2009, 2359 hrs.

Judging panel will consist:

1. A representative from Singapore Slingers management
2. A representative from Brewerkz management
3. A representative from FLY Entertainment
4. A representative from Ping.sg management, the Community meta-blog for Singapore bloggers

Judges’ decisions are final. If you need any clarification, please use the comment form below, or email me at contact [at] daphnemaia [dot] sg!

First, hurry, comment below with the completed sentence and win one of the 10 pairs of free tickets!

Some people have criticized my way of living and the social life I have, saying that friends online are not real friends. For a while, I believed them, because I was hurt by someone some people whom I met online. But now, I can really say this – that my friends whom I’ve met online are as real as the friends I meet through school or work.

I remember when I was a much younger girl, my parents used to warn me about the strangers I met online. They used to tell me that under no circumstances, I was to meet up with the people I made “friends” with online.

10 years have passed since I first got connected to the internet. 8 years have passed since I first met up with an online friend, at West Mall. His name was Payton. But I digress.

Today, my social life consists mainly of meeting friends from Plurk or Ping.sg for dinner after work, meeting up for coffee, going out with them for a movie or coffee, or desserts, or a meal over the weekend, joining them for Singapore Slingers basketball games at the Indoor Stadium, meeting them at PR-blogger events, having supper with them, or just basically, hanging out.

While some may say that my social life has deteriorated, I beg to differ. I have more than 30 friends whom I talk to on a regular basis (either on Plurk, Facebook, MSN, Gtalk, phone or SMS) and at least 15 whom I meet up with on an equally regular basis. And these people are people with whom I can have interesting and meaningful conversations with, be it about my life, about philosophy, about religion, about current affairs, about the ongoings in their lives, about food, movies or books, or any other interests. With the astounding number of people online, there’s always someone you can talk to about some quirky interest or other.

And I simply love starting threads and taking initiative to meet up with these friends, whether I’ve known them for years, or just a few days, because I enjoy being around people, meeting people and talking to them, listening to them share about their lives and perspectives on certain issues, as well as sharing mine.

What I love is the spontaneity of it all. I could just send out a message, asking, “Anyone wants to meet up for coffee and Scrabble?” and someone would reply. A similar message on any night asking for company over dinner would be responded to by at least one friend willing to meet up. Sometimes more than one person respond, turning what was meant to be a simple meet up into a huge gathering (remember the Plurk gathering at ICB back in November 08?)

Some may find this extremely unusual, but I suppose it’s a habit for me, to meet up with friends from online, and to organize gatherings and outings. It began from the time when I got myself involved in Ping.sg – slowly, I began to organize outings, and then I joined my friend Uzyn in helping him manage community events and activities.

By the time my stint at Ping.sg came to a close, I was already involved in another similar “community” on Plurk.com, which consisted of a lot of people from Ping.sg too. A lot of us were already familiar with one another, and we roped in friends of our own to join in the conversations on Plurk as well.

I don’t find these friendships wrong. Neither do I find them meaningless. Of course there have been mis-steps along the way – I’ve met less-than-nice people, but hey, they are everywhere – online, offline, even in your families! In fact, there are more horrible, poisonous people offline than online! But not all of the people online are creeps, you see?

I’m sure everyone will have a story to share, or will have heard a story, about an online friendship, an online romance that became a dream come true, or about learning from people online, etc. There’s a huge community (which translates into a huge pool of resources) online, and people just have to see that this community is there for some common purpose, to learn something and to share something.

With the ease with which we are able to get connected to the internet these days, it is also no wonder that we make friends with twice the ease, and triple the speed as the good old internetless days. It also means that we keep in touch with friends more often online, than offline. I personally have friends whom I don’t meet often, but whom I talk to regularly online. How do you draw the line between online and offline friends, then?

Truth is, I’m happy to meet people online, because I can judge from their writings before I decide if they would be worth my time to meet up with offline. In fact, I’d really be able to better connect with people who have lives online, too. I said this just 5 days ago, on Monday:

And I stand by what I’ve said. Because this part of my life is so important to me, I will never give it up for anyone. If he loves me, he will accept me for who I am and what I love doing – he will never restrict me in my social life, BUT most of all, I expect him to partake in it too.

Therefore the conclusion that I will most likely end up with someone who is equally as active as I am online, if not more. I just hope that people in my life can understand this, and stop criticizing me about it.

To my online friends: Cheers, to many many more years of friendship, and great conversations, and laughter-filled outings, and discovery of new interests. Cheers to learning, sharing, and helping one another in times of need. And most of all, cheers to US, because we are having the type of fun that some people only dream about!