You would think after writing 200 odd blog posts , i would be reading an equivalent amount of posts as well . Not the case . I find most blogs posts , either too personal , some too critical of something or some just too long at times (even some of my own !!!) . Worst ones are the rants but they are the ones which go viral . Even commented on one such huge rant if the fellow actually communicated his issue with those concerned at all before blogging about it !!!
So meeting fellow food bloggers at restaurants is a different thing as there are loads to discuss . What about bloggers from different genres having only one common factor , all from Chennai . So signed up on the last few days for the +IndiBlogger meet to be held in Chennai . Found out about this, thanks to the Facebook group The Chennai Bloggers Club (i am part of another CBC group , but that's a different story). Being a Sunday i could fit this in to my seemingly busy schedule , plus it had lunch included , so a lot more motivation for a blogger like me .
Reached the place with all my equipment (camera equipment !!!) and found fellow food bloggers waiting outside . This was the first visit to Hyatt Regency , so took some time to look around . Entered the hall after a bit and took immediately lead to the registration counter by a few men and women in black. We just hoped they didn't ask us to log in for registration using our indiblogger username and password cause i would not be able to remember it even if it was a life or death situation , blame save password option for that !!! Good thing it was just entering your email ID and Voila , you have entered Willy Wonkas Chocolate factory ... well not exactly , but a similar feeling. Got our seats and huge round tables which seemed to have some kind of primitive writing device too , a pencil . Last time i used one was .... never mind .
Now this is were things got interesting , as soon as you register your name is displayed on the huge screen for people to know you are 'In da House'. So you get your 5 seconds of fame then and there . Good thing they didn't display HD profile pictures from our FB page . Ladies would have been very upset !!! Now the crowd wasn't the young crowd i was expecting , but was good to see people in their mature age , passionate about blogging !!!
And let the games begin , started off with some interactive games , pick a number any number kind. And people won what what written against the number they picked from movie tickets and a few lucky ones ( two people who said 7 ???) got this . Rumour has it this was created by some mystical being millions of years ago and magically landed on the shores of Chennai to be picked up by wanna be treasure hunters at the beach. Rare indeed !!! Ebay could fetch $$$s for this !!!
Next was the 15 seconds of fame and one of the first intros was from a blogger who wrote it tamil and that received a lot of applause . Things started to roll from there , many unknown faces , many face known only through facebook (so that's why it's called FACEbook !!!) and a few real people !!! While the intros were fun and informative being a foodie had that tingling feeling that something wasn't right , LUNCH !!! started feeling hungry and add to that only 1/4th of the bloggers intros were done . So while the tweets on the event and the intros were being displayed on the large screen and me rehearsing what to say once i got the mike , the organisers thought it best to break for dinner . Yes !!! . Think this tweet had something to do with it too
Having skipped lunch to be 'early' to the event , went for a recon and found nothing much to my liking and sampled only a few items . Good thing i was around foodie bloggers , so they suggested the chicken salad and boy was it good , cold but still good . Food bloggers are by now immune to eating cold food , thanks to clicking food in all angles before biting into it !!!
Since Ambi Pur was the sponsor , they were giving away free Toyotas... NOT !!! They just blindfolded you and made you sit inside the car which had a few other additional passengers . No way was i going to go into this , pre or post lunch . They may vouch for their product , but i know my nose and it could pick up scents way better .
Back in , this time i took my camera out and went all Rambo shooting whoever my lens could find. (album here) Next was an introduction from the sponsors Ambi Pur about their product . It was all too technical (rather chemical) for me and overall their point was , your cars smells and they make it better !!! Being a foodie i can relate to that and have been using their product because this is how the inside of my car looks like
The one on display seemed a bit different , smaller and looked better. Still haven't tried it on the car though, since i got the previous one still half filled , or half empty !!!
Once that one was done , we were split into teams and each team was named after an ambi pur fragrance !!! I don't remember the name , but know that we were team blue !!! The contest , skits based on different topics , Malayalam movie (not what you are thinking) , Tamil comedians , Rajnikanth and Office Romance (Not the extra-marital kind ). Was fun watching teams trying to make something out of almost nothing . Even more interesting was trying to get some of the non-tamil bloggers to learn tamil dialogues . The skits turned out to be fun for the 10 min (extended to 15 mins) time limit set to prepare for it . Some even had their own commercials in between !!!
There prizes given out to best tweets on few topics as well and since i am not much of a twitter user (even that is related to food @ChennaiTwEater) so skipped this contest. but after finding out the they got +SAMSUNG GALAXY S4 , i felt WTF (exact words in my mind)
And after all that it was time to end the event on a good note . They had a speaker from one of the blogs which also happens to be in my reading list http://darkisbeautiful.blogspot.in/ to speak a bit about the cause and the reason behind the blog . I have tried to mentioned the blog in some of my posts , but it was nice to see people behind the blog come out and talk about it . I did manage to capture video !!! Hope it helps spread the word around !!!
Only wish that this session was a bit more interactive. Well you can always do that online !!! A few other bloggers came out and spoke about their favourite causes as well , i remember Deepam as i had a chat with the youngster who helps out there . And of course being a foodie , my friend Fazil gave an intro to Kalakkal Cafe . He did want me to speak about it , but i don't talk a lot , writing comes easier for me . I will update the list of other causes once i get the links . Wish there was a complete intro by each blogger (myself included) and more interaction between the bloggers and about the blogging experience as a whole or tips or tricks or a speech by some renowned blogger (not me this time !!!) .
At the end of it , it did make a bit of a difference to me , as i returned home and started reading and sharing some of the other blogs from fellow bloggers, who weren't food bloggers ;) . Guess there was a silver lining in the clouds that day and a breath of fresh air ... oh wait or was that just Ambi Pur !!!
So meeting fellow food bloggers at restaurants is a different thing as there are loads to discuss . What about bloggers from different genres having only one common factor , all from Chennai . So signed up on the last few days for the +IndiBlogger meet to be held in Chennai . Found out about this, thanks to the Facebook group The Chennai Bloggers Club (i am part of another CBC group , but that's a different story). Being a Sunday i could fit this in to my seemingly busy schedule , plus it had lunch included , so a lot more motivation for a blogger like me .
Reached the place with all my equipment (camera equipment !!!) and found fellow food bloggers waiting outside . This was the first visit to Hyatt Regency , so took some time to look around . Entered the hall after a bit and took immediately lead to the registration counter by a few men and women in black. We just hoped they didn't ask us to log in for registration using our indiblogger username and password cause i would not be able to remember it even if it was a life or death situation , blame save password option for that !!! Good thing it was just entering your email ID and Voila , you have entered Willy Wonkas Chocolate factory ... well not exactly , but a similar feeling. Got our seats and huge round tables which seemed to have some kind of primitive writing device too , a pencil . Last time i used one was .... never mind .
Now this is were things got interesting , as soon as you register your name is displayed on the huge screen for people to know you are 'In da House'. So you get your 5 seconds of fame then and there . Good thing they didn't display HD profile pictures from our FB page . Ladies would have been very upset !!! Now the crowd wasn't the young crowd i was expecting , but was good to see people in their mature age , passionate about blogging !!!
And let the games begin , started off with some interactive games , pick a number any number kind. And people won what what written against the number they picked from movie tickets and a few lucky ones ( two people who said 7 ???) got this . Rumour has it this was created by some mystical being millions of years ago and magically landed on the shores of Chennai to be picked up by wanna be treasure hunters at the beach. Rare indeed !!! Ebay could fetch $$$s for this !!!
Next was the 15 seconds of fame and one of the first intros was from a blogger who wrote it tamil and that received a lot of applause . Things started to roll from there , many unknown faces , many face known only through facebook (so that's why it's called FACEbook !!!) and a few real people !!! While the intros were fun and informative being a foodie had that tingling feeling that something wasn't right , LUNCH !!! started feeling hungry and add to that only 1/4th of the bloggers intros were done . So while the tweets on the event and the intros were being displayed on the large screen and me rehearsing what to say once i got the mike , the organisers thought it best to break for dinner . Yes !!! . Think this tweet had something to do with it too
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| Finally food bloggers get recognition for their work !!! |
Having skipped lunch to be 'early' to the event , went for a recon and found nothing much to my liking and sampled only a few items . Good thing i was around foodie bloggers , so they suggested the chicken salad and boy was it good , cold but still good . Food bloggers are by now immune to eating cold food , thanks to clicking food in all angles before biting into it !!!
Since Ambi Pur was the sponsor , they were giving away free Toyotas... NOT !!! They just blindfolded you and made you sit inside the car which had a few other additional passengers . No way was i going to go into this , pre or post lunch . They may vouch for their product , but i know my nose and it could pick up scents way better .
Back in , this time i took my camera out and went all Rambo shooting whoever my lens could find. (album here) Next was an introduction from the sponsors Ambi Pur about their product . It was all too technical (rather chemical) for me and overall their point was , your cars smells and they make it better !!! Being a foodie i can relate to that and have been using their product because this is how the inside of my car looks like
The one on display seemed a bit different , smaller and looked better. Still haven't tried it on the car though, since i got the previous one still half filled , or half empty !!!
Once that one was done , we were split into teams and each team was named after an ambi pur fragrance !!! I don't remember the name , but know that we were team blue !!! The contest , skits based on different topics , Malayalam movie (not what you are thinking) , Tamil comedians , Rajnikanth and Office Romance (Not the extra-marital kind ). Was fun watching teams trying to make something out of almost nothing . Even more interesting was trying to get some of the non-tamil bloggers to learn tamil dialogues . The skits turned out to be fun for the 10 min (extended to 15 mins) time limit set to prepare for it . Some even had their own commercials in between !!!
There prizes given out to best tweets on few topics as well and since i am not much of a twitter user (even that is related to food @ChennaiTwEater) so skipped this contest. but after finding out the they got +SAMSUNG GALAXY S4 , i felt WTF (exact words in my mind)
And after all that it was time to end the event on a good note . They had a speaker from one of the blogs which also happens to be in my reading list http://darkisbeautiful.blogspot.in/ to speak a bit about the cause and the reason behind the blog . I have tried to mentioned the blog in some of my posts , but it was nice to see people behind the blog come out and talk about it . I did manage to capture video !!! Hope it helps spread the word around !!!
Dark is Beautiful Intro
Only wish that this session was a bit more interactive. Well you can always do that online !!! A few other bloggers came out and spoke about their favourite causes as well , i remember Deepam as i had a chat with the youngster who helps out there . And of course being a foodie , my friend Fazil gave an intro to Kalakkal Cafe . He did want me to speak about it , but i don't talk a lot , writing comes easier for me . I will update the list of other causes once i get the links . Wish there was a complete intro by each blogger (myself included) and more interaction between the bloggers and about the blogging experience as a whole or tips or tricks or a speech by some renowned blogger (not me this time !!!) .
At the end of it , it did make a bit of a difference to me , as i returned home and started reading and sharing some of the other blogs from fellow bloggers, who weren't food bloggers ;) . Guess there was a silver lining in the clouds that day and a breath of fresh air ... oh wait or was that just Ambi Pur !!!
