While there is no surprise of what’s my favourite TV show in history,

No more Sex.

my favourite TV show character with the most brilliant script / lines ever written for – is no doubt, Ari Gold from Entourage (HBO). Whoever invented Ari Gold is a total genius. Almost as genius as the brainchild of Yogitoes.

(Useful fact: Ari’s character is based on the real-life Hollywood agent Ari Emanuel, who broke away from mega-agency ICM to form the Endeavor Talent Agency, which represents such stars as Vin Diesel and Larry David, both of whom are represented on the show by the fictional Ari Gold. Likewise, both Emanuel and Gold represent series producer, Mark Wahlberg, upon whose experiences in Hollywood the series is loosely based. Ari Emanuel also once represented Jeremy Piven himself, and in an interview on the special features of the Season 3 Part 2 DVD, Entourage creator Doug Ellin says that the real life Ari Emanuel demanded the “Ari Gold” part be cast to Piven and wouldn’t accept anyone else to play him.)

I started noticing the actor, Jeremy Piven when he started playing main’s best friend in Serendipity (John Cusack’s) and The Family Man (Nicholas Cage’s) in 2000 & 2001. On my defense, I was only 18!

After glued to watching season after season of Entourage to be blown away by the most insulting yet inspirational lines from the mouth of Ari Gold (and Johnny Drama!), I found myself paying more attention to Jeremy Pixen after I watched Jeremy Piven’s Journey Of A Lifetime (2006) where Piven travelled to Northern and Southern India for a spiritual and yoga journey (as if they are any different – LOL. Auww, come on. Lighten up!)

Discovery Channel

Since then, I have been bending over backwards to find out more about Jeremy Piven and his quest for yoga.

Infamously, Jeremy credits his (fish) mercury poisoning incident to discovering Fish Pose.

From Men’s Fitness:

Since then, he has taken up yoga. “[My preconception was] you have to wear a leotard,” he jokes. “I mean, do you have to wear a bindi and hold incense?” But now, he credits lotus poses and downward facing dogs for giving him the calm to play Ari Gold on the TV show. “Ari’s got some quick-twitch anger,” Piven says.

“To do that repeatedly, you have to come from a place of stillness.”

More yoga photos of Jeremy Piven (images from HBO, Men’s Fitness, Fitsugar, People, Yoga Dork and Google)

Side planking

He claimed that it only took him nine months to master the splits  – here’s for hoping, guys!

With the Porsche of yoga mats

.   .   .   .   .   .

What’s with the sudden craze of Jeremy Piven, Ninie – you may ask?

Well, one – Entourage premiered Season 7 when I was in the US,

and two, someone Direct Message-d me on Twitter just the other day !

While I can’t don’t want to share what he DM-ed me (errr, since my boyfriend might read this?), all I can say is – I can’t wait!

Love and LA light.

Project Alpha Season 2’s last episode (online) aired yesterday with Azwan Ali & Klubbkidd as their last two featured bloggers.

Each of them told me they have a secret crush over Ninie Ahmad.

Azwan says I look very much like his former yet biggest celebrity crush, Ziana Zain so he loves me no matter what.

Well, it’s not the first time I was told so

And Klubbkidd (aka Joe Lee) said since he’ll never be married to Xiaxue’s husband a girl, I can be his wife for a day during the Project Alpha Bloggers’ Launch.

Plus, he did Partner Yoga in public with me too just to know what it feels like having a girl on top of him

For avid followers who are already having Project Alpha Season 2 withdrawal symptom, I just found out today that there is a bonus episode mainly featuring adidas OLE KO Challenge I bragged on how confident I was on winning.

To find out who really won, yoga-ta just watch this for I’m not telling (since they DIDN’T tell me Michael ‘The Director’ Lim was gonna play and played damn well too!)

Photos from Azwan Ali

If you still can’t get enough of Project Alpha (or are not patient enough to wait for it to load on YouTube), catch us on Hitz TV (ASTRO Ch 705) every Sunday 10 to 10.30pm with repeats on every Tuesday 7:30 till 8:00pm, every Thursday 8:30 till 9.00pm and every Saturday 3:00 till 3:30pm and in this order.

May 23: Project Alpha Season 1 bloggers

May 30: Niki Cheong + Xiaxue (Part I)

June 6: Niki Cheong + Xiaxue (Part II)

June 13: Cheesie

June 10: Shaolin Tiger

June 27: KY

July 4: M-E!

July 11: Azwan Ali

July 18: Klubbkidd

.   .   .   .   .   .

I can never thank Project Alpha sponsors enough,

Main Sponsor : Adidas Action 3
Official Broadband Sponsor : P1
Official Flight Sponsor : Malaysia Airlines
Official Cosmetics Sponsor : Rimmel
Official Hair & Make Up Sponsor : A Cut Above
Official Media Partner : Hitz FM & Era FM
Official Social Networking Site : Ruumz
Hotel Sponsors : 360Kuching & Millennium Hotel Group
Online News Portal : The Daily Chilli

for making it all happen to us (allegedly) Malaysia’s top bloggers.

.   .   .   .   .   .

I vouch for Joyce Wong, Hanis Zalikha and Proudduck for Project Alpha Season 3!

American Idol Season 10?

America’s Next Top Model Cycle 16?

Nip/Tuck The Movie?

More Akademi Fantasia?

SERIOUSLY?

.   .   .   .   .   .

Can’t they learn from Sex And The City – KNOW when to end the party?

(But proceed shooting Weeds 6 & Entourage 7, s’il vous plaît!)

.   .   .   .   .   .

If there is one thing I was excited about American Idol finale a couple of mornings ago – was the brief yet powerful appearance of Alanis Morissette in support of Idol runner-up Crystal Bowersox.

.   .   .   .   .   .

On a completely different note, I LOVE Alanis Morissette and love is an understatement. I still play ALL of her CDs in my car (come to think of it – Jagged Little Pill was released 15 YEARS AGO!) and her Feast On Scrap DVD is my substitute for caffeine every morning.

Useful facts about Alanis Morissette (most of them from Wikipedia, of course):

• Her worldwide debut album Jagged Little Pill remains the best-selling debut album by a female artist in the U.S. and the highest selling debut album worldwide – selling 30 million units globally.
• She acted in three of my favourite TV series – Sex And The City (Season 2), Nip / Tuck (Season 5) and Weeds (Season 5, I hear she’s shortlisted in Season 6 as well)!
• In February 2005, Alanis became a naturalized citizen of the United States while maintaining her Canadian citizenship. She refers to herself as a Canadian-American.
• Alanis practices Iyengar yoga and her twin brother is a yoga teacher!
• In early 2009, after reading Dr. Joel Fuhrman’s book Eat to Live, Alanis adopted a vegan diet.

.   .   .   .   .   .

.. and Top 10 most played songs (in order of Play Count) in my Alanis yoga playlist:

1. So Unsexy
2. King Of Pain
3. That I Would Be Good
4. You Learn
5. Hands Clean
6. That Particular Time
7. Thank U
8. Flinch
9. Hands In My Pocket
10. All I Really Want

What’s in yours?

When the first season of Project Alpha was in the making, I came to know about it from reading the featured bloggers’ blogs and I said to myself  “Heh, I am sooooo not one of Malaysia’s top bloggers anymore.”

My infamous blog before this, The Yoga Instructor Diaries gained quite a number of daily visitors back then especially during the yoga fatwa fiasco and I cashed in lotsa money from high traffic & advertorials from Nuffnang.

Not this much money though.

So when Nuffnang’s David Wong broke the news “Ninie, how would you like to be one of the bloggers for Project Alpha Season 2?”, I went, “Eh, do I even have anyone reading my new blog at all?”

Sweet David replied, “Of course, we shortlist only our highest rated bloggers for Project Alpha, you know!”

ME? In the same league with Kenny Sia and Cheesie? And Shaolin Tiger? And KY Speaks? And Red Mummy? And XIAXUE?

Yoga-ta be kidding me!

.   .   .   .   .   .

So if you asked me last year, does Ninie Ahmad prefer to be known as The Blogger Who Teaches Yoga or The Yoga Instructor That Blogs,

I am positive I would have answered the latter (with a smirk).

“I’m still, I’m still Ninie from the blog.. Used to have a little now I have a lot (visitors, thank you ALL OF YOU!)”

But if you ask me again now – after the whole Project Alpha experience, I have to say I really don’t mind am honoured being known as a (known?) blogger.

I might be teaching yoga to 3 or 30 students in one yoga class, but I am pleased to know that – I might be teaching yoga to 300 if not 3000 (on really good days ) through this cyberspace.

My endless gratitude to sponsors of Project Alpha

Main Sponsor : Adidas Action 3
Official Broadband Sponsor : P1
Official Flight Sponsor : Malaysia Airlines
Official Cosmetics Sponsor : Rimmel
Official Hair & Make Up Sponsor : A Cut Above
Official Media Partner : Hitz FM & Era FM
Official Social Networking Site : Ruumz
Hotel Sponsors : 360Kuching & Millennium Hotel Group
Online News Portal : The Daily Chilli

for the experience of a lifetime and to Nuffnang especially for seeing it in me.

.   .   .   .   .   .

Stay tuned for my episodes of Project Alpha (which might have Henry Golding in them!) in my next entries.

I may not know many other things about the fourth featured Project Alpha Season 2 blogger – KY

but I do know that he eats just about everything that I don’t!

Just check out Episode 28 / 49 of Project Alpha Season 2

where you’d pretty much get an idea of why I am NOT always invited to KY, Cheesie and Shaolin Tiger’s weekly feast!

.   .   .   .   .   .

As for Gareth Davis or infamously known as Shaolin Tiger – I was speechless when first introduced to him. He is SuperSuperTall (lighten up)!

Standing (freakishly) tall at 6 feet 5, I witnessed heard he broke this white square frame during our photoshoot together. Just compare our size ratio in between these two photos, M A D N E S S!

So when Four Feet Nine Audrey and Five Feet Even Ninie held captive of this giant during Project Alpha Season 2 Bloggers’ Launch last month, we couldn’t resist to not compare who’s the tallest among us all!

I took my heels off, Aud didn’t!

To everyone’s surprise, FourFeetNine IS (the tallest)!

SuperSuperTall and I also exchange tweet regularly as we share the same good taste in driving the same mean machine (also sharing the same complications and frustation on how expensive it is to maintain our Batmobiles).

I could use all his Project Airtrek findings and his mechanic too!

Batmobile photos from Shaolin Tiger

Although he and his wheels might appear fierce to many, he almost got me (OK lah, he did get me) tear-eyed upon watching Project Alpha Season 2 Episode 29 / 49

where he confessed that his girlfriend for five-years is “the one”.

I defend my statement on Twitter yesterday that THAT is the sweetest if not most romantic thing a man could do – to proudly pronounce your love to someone for the whole world to hear.

No game, no shame, just plain sincere and romantic.

Local men – LEARN!

.  .  .  .  .  .

Project Alpha Season 2 can be viewed at my sidebar and will also be aired on Hitz TV (ASTRO Ch705) starting this Sunday, May 23rd 10:00 till 10.30pm and repeats are on

.  .  .  .  .  .

To the next blogger on Project Alpha Season 2 queue (I heard she’s a yoga instructor ) – eat, love and drive safe!

Having read and enjoyed both books tremendously,

- tell me if I am being patriotic or optimistic if I get MORE excited watching this trailer

LAGENDA BUDAK SETAN The Movie (to be released 2010)

compared to this?

EAT PRAY LOVE The Movie (Summer 2010)

I remember clearly taking turns reading Lagenda Budak Setan in boarding school some 15 years(!) ago and how hard I prayed I’d grow up a pretty Malay woman like Ayu (clearly didn’t happen) and to fall in love and eventually marry a hopeless romantic Malay guy (which based on personal experience, doesn’t exist) like Kasyah.

Judging from the trailer,

While Ayu can never be played by any other local actress (I can’t think of anyone that is not mesmerised by Lisa Surihani, she is just too lovely..) and I am never not a fan of Farid Kamil, I must say he looks the Kasyah part!

Spoiler: I bet think Fazura is Ayu (too)! Although she would embody the perfect perfect Katerina (she even looks like the girl on the cover of Katerina The Novel, no?) too..

I choose OPTIMISTIC – that Lagenda Budak Setan movie will be as good if not better than tear-jerking Cinta, my absolute favourite Malaysian movie among a couple others.

Love. Lots of love this weekend.

Chris Martin in Baddha Konasana (heh, listen to me..)

My favourite yoga playlist  is my favourite 28 songs of Coldplay on iTunes to accompany my (on good days, errrr.. 110 minutes?) Ashtanga self-practice.

As many of you might have heard of my infatuation over Coldplay and its frontman, Chris Martin (no thanks to CLEO Malaysia MAY 2010 Page 125) – the more I listen to them especially when I almost died was resting in Balasana in between Bhekasana and Dhanurasana during my Ashtanga Second Series practice this morning particularly, all the more I (make) believe he was high on yoga (we yogi wannabes call it ‘yoga hangover’) while writing music and lyrics for their more recent albums (FYI, I read that he started yoga some five years ago and turned vegetarian + gave up coffee and alcohol eversince).

Just listen again to these tracks from X&Y (I’m going on the defensive here, ‘Y‘ stands for Yoga )

Fix You

And high up above earth or down below
When you’re too in love to let it go
But if you never try you’ll never know
Just what you’re worth

Lights will guide you home
And ignite your bones
And I will try to fix you

(It is such a soundtrack for yoga instructors I can’t help to not have quoted this to introduce BE Yoga’s teachers in BE Yoga’s website!)

Twisted Logic

Ask who does this belong to
It belongs to all of us

You go backwards but then you go forwards again
You go backwards but then you go forwards

X & Y

You and me are floating on a tidal wave… together
You and me are drifting into outer space
and singing

Oooohh, oooohh (feel free to finish your exhalation with additional “mmmm..” after “oooohhh”  )

and VIVA LA VIDA (which is still on heavy rotation in my car – and irritates my friends)

Life In Technicolour II

Oh love don’t let me go
Won’t you take me where the streetlights glow
I could hear it coming
I could hear the sirens sound
Now my feet won’t touch the ground

Strawberry Swing

Cold, cold water bring me ’round
Now my feet won’t touch the ground (two ‘now my feet won’t touch the ground’s! I’m pretty sure he was on One Elbow Pincha Mayurasana while WRITING this!)
Cold, cold water what ya say?
When it’s such…
It’s such a perfect day
It’s such a perfect day

I remember
We were walking up to Strawberry Swing
I can’t wait until the morning
Wouldn’t wanna change a thing

People moving all the time
Inside a perfectly straight line
Don’t you wanna just curve away?
When it’s such…
It’s such a perfect day
It’s such a perfect day

Notice how their songs are ALWAYS if not ever so positive, very optimistic, very ‘we-live-in-a-beautiful-world, yeah-we-do, yeah-we-do’ – SEE WHAT Y O G A DOES TO ROCKSTARS?

By the way , Chris Martin was voted one of Greatest Frontmen ever by Q magazine last month.

Now – remember the MTV World Stage’s COLDPLAY – Viva La Vida: Tokyo in which I raved on seeing him rolled back to Chakrasana (Rolling Wheel posture) in between the finishing of Viva La Vida and to start Lost!?

Guess what, I FOUND the Youtube (don’t blink during the first 6 seconds!)

.. and my very own Chris Martin here. Oh, I did share that too, didn’t I?

Three-Stripes intended

Love and ‘Til Kingdom Come.

What do Cheesie, Xiaxue & Ninie Ahmad have in common (beside the obvious picture that we are the featured female bloggers for Project Alpha Season 2)?

Nuffnang must have lost their mind – for putting the most NOT-bankable blogger me in the same league with Malaysia and Singapore’s most famous bloggers!

Well, if we are going to state the things we DON’T have in common first, of course -

• I don’t have nail-art nails, errrr.. long blonde hair and blue eyes (?)
• I don’t (know how to?) Photoshop & waterwark ALL my photos
• I don’t have tens of thousand visitors a day, AND
• I don’t cash in tens of thousand ringgit from Nuffnang every month too

OBVIOUSLY

.. so in case you guys haven’t noticed,

..we are of the same height!

To find out more about Cheesie and to witness she does look AS GOOD without Photoshop anyway, watch her episodes in Project Alpha website or at my sidebar. You will feel less of a girl or fall in love with all things Chees(i)e soonafter!

I swear her hair smells sweet + lovely ALL THE TIME (or at least when I was beside her)!

Having had my Cheesie marathon earlier, I am partly excited and mostly nervous about how will MY episodes look like! Kyanite and Nuffnang – be kind!

Project Alpha Season 2, a reality TV show uncovering Malaysia’s top bloggers is made possible by:

Main Sponsor : Adidas Action 3
Official Broadband Sponsor : P1
Official Flight Sponsor : Malaysia Airlines
Official Cosmetics Sponsor : Rimmel
Official Hair & Make Up Sponsor : A Cut Above
Official Media Partner : Hitz FM & Era FM
Official Social Networking Site : Ruumz
Hotel Sponsors : 360Kuching & Millennium Hotel Group
Online News Portal : The Daily Chilli

.  .  .  .  .  .

Oh, and if anyone’s interested – all the dresses I wore in this entry are TENNIS DRESSES from adidas!

I always pair them with glittering bangles / layering necklaces / scarves (perfect to hide unwanted cleavage) AND super high heels for events / parties.

Maroon tennis dress by Stella McCartney for adidas

Baby blue tennis dress by adidas Kids (really!)

Purple tennis dress by adidas from Ana Ivanovic range

They might be from a couple of seasons ago but if you are lucky, you might still get them from smaller adidas outlets.

.  .  .  .  .  .

Love, plenty of cheese and all things girly today!

I could be the worst ‘Malaysia’s Top Blogger’ in Project Alpha history, not only I do not watermark (nor Photoshop any of) my photos nor post up advertorials (not condoning junk food, animal essence supplement, slimming products and alcohol parties does make one a poor blogger) – I also haven’t updated my blog in months weeks!

It feels like it was just last week I attended the Project Alpha Season 2 launch and press conference – and now, its second episode with first featured blogger – Niki Cheong, a columnist / journalist with The Star is shown at Project Alpha’s Official Website and at my sidebar!

Niki, Ninie and Supersupertall

Project Alpha Season 2 is a reality TV show which uncovers the lives of Malaysia’s top 7 bloggers and other bloggers featured in Season 2 beside the three of us are Cheesie, KY, Klubbkidd and Azwan Ali with special appearances by Xiaxue, Kenny Sia and Project Alpha Season 1 bloggers!

I promise I’d share my photos of Project Alpha launch & press conference REAL SOON but I can’t help to share this hilarious photo that I stole from Niki’s blog first, where we imitated each other’s infamous pose on the Project Alpha Season 2 buntings during the launch!

Ninie doing a Niki and Niki breaking his back!

Enjoy Niki’s episodes for now and my heartiest gratitude to Project Alpha sponsors who made us all feel most celebrated!

Main Sponsor : Adidas Action 3
Official Broadband Sponsor : P1
Official Flight Sponsor : Malaysia Airlines
Official Cosmetics Sponsor : Rimmel
Official Hair & Make Up Sponsor : A Cut Above
Official Media Partner : Hitz FM & Era FM
Official Social Networking Site : Ruumz
Hotel Sponsors : 360Kuching & Millennium Hotel Group
Online News Portal : The Daily Chilli

Love and limelight.

Those close to me will know that my car and iTunes only rotate Coldplay (and occasional Radiohead / Padi ) CDs and those who have visited BE Yoga’s website would have noticed I intentionally used Coldplay’s lyrics to introduce my beloved yoga teachers.

With MTV World Stage (Astro Channel 713) premiering Coldplay’s VIVA LA VIDA: Tokyo tour this week, it refreshes me of my day trip to Singapore in March this year solely to attend VIVA LA VIDA: Singapore.

During VIVA LA VIDA: Singapore, my jaw dropped when I witnessed Chris Martin dropped back to Urdhva Dhanurasana (Upward Bow pose) from standing! Only if you practice yoga, you will understand how preposterous this stunt can be unless you have perfect balance of lowest two chakras (feet and hips) strength, open back flexibility and of course, balance.

So I was looking forward to see the same pose from him as I immensely enjoyed MTV World Stage – Coldplay: Tokyo. To my surprise, he didn’t drop back in Tokyo (or I could have missed it / maybe he did but the clip was just for an hour) but – to my very eyes, I caught him rolling back to Chakrasana (Rolling Wheel posture) in between the finishing of Viva La Vida and to start Lost! Only if you practice yoga Ashtanga, you will have an idea how almost impossible it is to perform this Chakrasana vinyasa gracefully let alone onstage with concert costume and in front of twenty thousand people.

I know Gywneth practices yoga since she used to be bestie with Third Series Ashtanga practitioner, Madonna so I googled Chris Martin and yoga. And found out, Chris Martin not only does practice yoga (I have had enough of “I do yoga but the my last class was three years ago and I was doing it like once a month for a couple of months”, right..) but he practices Ashtanga at least an hour everyday for the past five years, a vegetarian (and vegansexual!) and for the world’s biggest if not coolest rockstar, HE DOES NOT DRINK ALCOHOL AND COFFEE EITHER!

Among my favourite online findings of Chris Martin and yoga is this article whose first paragraph ends with “.. but Coldplay’s Chris Martin is too nice.”

(FIONA) APPLE Hi, Chris. God, I’m depressed. I’m at the top of all these critics’ best-of-2005 lists. If only those old creeps bought records.

(CHRIS) MARTIN I wish I could be so fucking depressed! Maybe my lyrics would improve. Just turn that frown upside down, Fiona. Don’t you know Apples are my favorite fruit?

APPLE Hey, you stepped on my granny-apple-doll wood-carvings!

MARTIN Have you ever tried piyoga for that bad attitude?

APPLE I hate you.

I stand by my review of X/Y last year: The trouble with Coldplay is that, despite the calming, balanced, almost Enya-esque beauty of their music, they’re so denuded of danger, risk, grit, rebellion, and sexuality (apart from Martin’s ADD-style hip-thrusts behind his piano) that they threaten to become the musical equivalent of St. John’s wort.

So what is at play with Coldplay? What drives the music, the vision, and, oh, those much-maligned words?

I believe it’s yoga, and Martin’s ashtanga teacher Anthony Carlisi can confirm. Shortly after Coldplay’s Shoreline date, I tracked down Carlisi via e-mail and asked him if he believed the practice leads to good music and, really, decent rock ‘n’ roll — which most would probably associate with unhealthy and downright antisocial antics like rolling around in broken glass and doing lines of coke off speaker cabinets.

He replied: “Absolutely !!!!!!!!!!! (sic) In fact I just saw Chris in Phoenix before the concert there. He has been practicing now for several years. I visit and teach him and Gwyneth when I am in London. He was telling me that he loves how it has enhanced everything he does. His energy was electric at the concert…………….Great Show!!!!!!!!!!!!”

See? It’s not rock, after all, but yoga. All of which probably explains Martin’s greatest feat at the Oakland appearance: bending over backward while playing keyboards and touching the ground with the top of his noggin. Brings a whole new meaning to the lyric ‘rush of blood to the head.’

I don’t need to look elsewhere for a yoga rockstar inspiration when I can find one in form of Brit rockGod with yoga master’s mind and words (it doesn’t hurt that he definitely has a yoga body too).

I am praying with my fingers and lotus feet crossed to be able to live long enough to witness Coldplay live in more concerts, continue seeing lights / hearing enlightenments in their future albums (“Lights will guide you home, and ignite your bones, I will try to fix you”) and hopefully practice with Chris Martin in Mysore (the Mecca for aspiring Ashtangis) in the future if not in my nearest yoga nidra.

See You Soon.