Marina’s Bloggariffic

It was a last minute decision. After wrestling with the “lazy virus”, I eventually went headed to Cafe Domus where the Social Media Breakfast 2 was held and I was glad that I finally went!

Cos I got to meet sexeh ladies like Christina and Priscilla

SMB is basically a get together where people can exchange ideas and interact over a meal. I enjoyed it as there were plentiful of interesting people there, and many of them were open to discussing about Social Media.

In both of the SMB that we attended, we were given a sheet of sticky tapes where where we were supposed to tag other people according to what we perceive them to be.

Plaktoz gets tagged

I thought that it was a great way to interact and get to know people. It also helped that the venue was smaller and cosier too - forcing everyone to interact with everyone else :-)

Personally for me, I find social media a rather interesting subject. In simple terms, social media is basically a two way communication using web 2.0 - such as blogs, forums, networking sites, vlogs, Secondlife and loads more.

Two handsome, smart and charming men, Litford and Preetam

Social media isn’t really something new, in fact even celebrities are increasingly using them as an another avenue for them to win more supporters by publicly interacting with people.

Hence I was very nonplussed when Cart was amazed to see that even celebrities like Jessica Alba willingly uploading a video of herself on youtube. He seems even more impressed when told that a big probability that she will be paid according to the hits that she brought in.

Nicole and Mr Mindef

But coming back to the SMB, it was nice to meet new people as well as to listen to differing takes on Social Media.

One of them was Wanlyn (pictured here talking intently with me) who was quite perturbed of the social networking site, Facebook - She believes that although facebook was useful in organizing events, we should not be too attached to Facebook to the point that you forget your real life, to which, I agreed with her.

Rinaz and Claudia

I also met Hun Boon whom was a wary of e-learning upon learning that I am currently working with an e-learning company. It was through his personal observations as well as interactions that made him believe that the use of technology does not equate to a better learning. To him, aspects such as social human interaction was more important. I don’t quite agree with him, but I respect his point of view.

Ridz seems to have multiple personalities

There was also Ridz who recently posted a very good article about cliques in the web community, we chatted a while together and both remarked at how we tend to meet the same people in events such as these and he remarked, ‘Are there more people who are interested in social media or is this as good as it gets?’ And we both pondered for the longest time.

For some reason Dominic and Juzzywuzzy don’t look like they are in Singapore

All in all, I rather enjoyed myself, as simple as the event was, it was really good to have an exchange of information over a topic that we were all interested in. I liked that

Sweetheart Jayden drew this as my tag!

Thank you organizers for organizing this lovely event. Non surprisingly, I’m looking forward to the next tone :-)

Are you into Social Media? What do you think of it? Do you think it is over hyped?

Links to other blog posts :

• Ladyironchef
• Sheylara
• Dominic
• Daphne Maia
• Uniquefrequency
• Miccheng

Last Thursday, a group of bloggers as well as tech-forumites, journalists and various media were invited by Gina of The Right Spin to the HTC Touch Diamond unveiling at the swanky Shangri La.

Before going to the event, in all honesty, I was quite nonplussed about the phone, seeing as to how homogeneous phones are becoming, with similar functions and even similar physical looks. How can this one be any different?

But the more I learn about the phone, the more enticing it is. The feature which I liked a lot was the graphical interface of the phone as compared to the current phones that we have now which are in 2D, the Touch Diamond has a 3D interface which makes it aesthetically simple to get to different functions.

Naturally as a heavy internet user, it was not so much as the camera function nor the mp3 player that impressed me, but I’d have to say that the internet function of the Touch Diamond was very impressive.

According John Wang, Chief Marketing Officer of HTC, the Touch Diamond uses HSDPA technology which makes internet connection 16 times faster than regular 3G. And it was visually apparent as watching a youtube video - it was very speedy. Unfortunately the demo version of the phones came out blank when I tried going to Vimeo as well as trying to view the video on my site, but it was explained that the phones will be updated to allow viewing of flash embedded videos.

A couple of other cool feature of the phone is how there is an autoflow function which would solve the problem of having to move the directional key countless of times. There was also a character optical reader where you take a picture of a namecard and it recognizes the character and store it into the address book. And the body was sturdy enough to withstand a drop without even a scratch mark to it.

This is a really sweet phone indeed.

At $1098 dollars, it might seem a little steep, but I think that its worth it considering the very spectacular functions of the phone.

Here is a quick video clip of the event :

Unveiling of the HTC Touch Diamond from rinaz on Vimeo

Have you used a HTC phone before? What do you think about it?

Links :

• HTC Touch Diamond Webpage
• Claudia’s Blog Post
• Hillary’s Blog Post
• Hardwarezone Review

To cope being in a long distance relationship, food naturally became the source of comfort for me to fill up my emotional void. And then the signs started - not being able to fit in clothes as well as before, feeling even more lethargic than I had before.

Can’t fit into my beautiful white dress anymore :(

A recent blood test I had completely shocked me when the results came out saying that I was overweight. Overweight! I’ve never been overweight before! This was shocking to me as I’ve always grown up being skinny.

Rinaz at 12 years old. The true stickrinaz

And when Cart left to go back to Rome early January this year, I started to get very stressed out and my zits started to awaken from their dormancy. Pretty much like the last stress-attack I had two years ago.

I probably was undergoing one of the most unattractive lows in my life. Overweight and zittified. I could not just let this continue. I knew that I had to do something. But what?

One thing I knew was that I did not want to undergo drastic measures like diet pills. And yet, I cannot give up the food that I like as I still love food so much

I guess the doors opened when a friend asked me to join her for a cardiomix session at the sports Complex - at that point, I was keen to get my fitness level back.

And though it was really tough at the beginning, I still enjoyed my sessions, especially with the company that I had and eventually, I just fell into wanting to feel the adrenaline rush that I get after each session. I loved the feeling!

As for the zits, I decided to see a private doctor whom prescribed me Diane-35. At first I was a little doubtful as it was an oral contraceptive which will affect my hormones but the doctor reassured that it was safe and worldwide used pill.

After several months of consumption, I have to say how liberating it is to be able to post a picture without having to photoshop the zits away!

And it was only recently when I noticed this :

It might not be a 6 pack like what Uncle Sha has, but I can see something forming. And this really makes me motivated. The funny thing is that my weight is still the same. But I do feel better about myself than ever before.

Did you ever feel unpretty before? What do you do to feel good?

if you liked this post, you might enjoy :

• I am fat
• Cardio? No sweat!
• Evolution of face

Sidenote : If you were from Claudia’s looking for the HTC video, its not up yet :-)

Bon Jour! Salut! I had zee most lovely time last Thursday night, being with friends over coffee. What better way to spend zee time together? Oui?

I was initially surprised to receive the invitation by EastWestPR but after hearing the Carte Noire commercial on 938live for some weeks, curiosity got the better of me and I decided to attend the event along with my friends, Mintea, Chillycraps and NTT who were all coffee lovers themselves.

I just realised at how multi-racial this picture is

Thus, last Thursday, I attended the Carte Noir press event at the beautiful Old School building at Mount Sophia. Carte Noir is a leading coffee brand in France. Which explains why I’m wearing a beret - for that French feel :-P

Old School is such a beautiful place. I could not help but to admire how charming it looked with its bold black lines over white washes. If NTT had not mentioned that the place used to be the Methodist Girl’s School, I really could not have guessed it. Now it houses many Art and Design institution. I should really come here again to see the place in more detail.

At the registration counter we saw Aaron as well as Sabrina and after registering, we headed inside where I saw Chillycraps and Mintea already sitting down on a bench which seemed rather curious to me. Why sit there, when there are proper tables and chairs to sit on?

Chillycraps : Thats because we are at a school and we should sit on a bench like students!

In any case, the Managing Director of Kraft Foods, officially started the event with a short speech and the fashion show featuring the Paris-trained Cambodian designer, Romyda Keth started.

It was a little hard for me to see the fashion show though, with the guests and the photographers standing up, taking pictures of the models that we could not get a clear view. Regardless, looking at her dress collections from the website is beautiful, elegant and most definitely wearable.

After the fashion show, each of us were given a cup of Carte Noire coffee for a taste test. Personally for me, I thought that the taste was very light, almost airy like. I preferred my coffee strong but I can imagine how this coffee will be very popular with the masses because of the light taste.

Mr Paris Arnold, the Managing Director for Kraft joins us for a chat session, where he seems genuinely interested in knowing more about us bloggers. I think that companies are starting to open up to bloggers which I think is great as it is a direct way of getting feedback from the very people who consume their products.

Sabrina started asking Paris, why a fashion show for a coffee launch. And with enthusiasm he replied :

“The French embodies style and sophistication and a fashion show brings that to our coffee to reflect that especially with a Paris trained designer”

Ah!

Later on, we proceeded to enter a room where we saw our favourite barista! Danny Pang! Danny was there to do a demonstration on how to create coffee as well as how to make coffee art. He makes it look so easy to make that perfect blend of coffee and with his extremely sexy, manly voice, I could just go on to listening to him for hours!

Later on we went to our seats to have our own go at creating coffee art. At first it was quite daunting as I’ve never done anything like this before and I had the feeling that my coffee art is going to turn out bad.

But I gave it a try anyways and swirled the milk foam and it turns out that the outcome wasn’t bad - it was quite decent actually considering that it was my first time. Maybe I’m a coffee genius without knowing it! :-P

Its not perfect but its not bad right? This makes me want to learn more about coffee :-)

Here is a short video on the coffee demonstration :

Making Coffee Art from rinaz on Vimeo

We had so much fun talking about coffee that before we knew it, it was already 8pm! A whole hour after the event has ended. Time really does goes by really quickly when one is having fun :-)

And at the end of the day, we were given a door gift consisting of Carte Noire Coffee as well as their beautiful gold trimmed cup and saucer for us to continue enjoying a cup of coffee-love :-)

Do you drink coffee? How do you like your coffee?

Related links :

• Carte Noire Press Release
• Romyda Keth collections
• Danny Pang’s blog entry
• Chillycrap’s blog entry
• Mintea’s blog entry

Sidenote : While on the topic, I won a Coffee Card thanks to Nicole’s contest! I couldn’t possibly drink 11 cuppas so let me know if you want to go to Geek Terminal with me :-)

It looked pretty cool when it first came out in 2005(!) but as time goes by, it started to get a little embarrassing to go around with my old namecard.

Being the cheapskate frugal person that I am, I thought that I’d just use a marker pen to cancel out the outdated information like the job title and the phone number. It was only when I was at an event, handing out my cards that I realized at how unprofessional it was.

Finally I decided to design new cards. I got them from the printer last evening and I love it!

This is the front :

I wanted the front to have a simple elegance to it.

I used the pic (which I love) Farinelli took of me and omitted the phone number as well as the job status to make it evergreen. I didn’t want the typical namecard, hence I tried to made it more warm by being conversational.

And this is the back :

My favourite colour is green :-)

Here are some of the cartoon characters that I drew and am very proud of - Cart and Rinaz cartoon as well as the characters from the Nimmo and friends series

I printed the cards at Tommy’s Print after reading Claudia’s post. At $24 for 200 pieces, I think the price is even more competitive than the ones at Bras Basah Basah Complex which is a hot spot for digital artists.

So what do you think of my card? :-)

Sidenote : Would you be interested in a lipdub project?

Last week’s episode of America’s Next Top Model has completely inspired me to do this :

Lipschtick from rinaz on Vimeo

If you enjoyed this video, you might also enjoy :

• How to be pretty (or at least try to be)

Recently, my family and I went to the Ayer Rajah Food center for some local food delights. One of the food that we ordered was the Sop Tulang - cow bone marrow cooked in savoury sweet tomato sauce.

Its not the healthiest thing to eat, and you risk having your mouth stained in red sauce, but its oh so good to eat!

Eating Tulang from rinaz on Vimeo

Have you ever eaten Tulang before? How was your experience like?

Related link :

• Sup Tulang demystified

Sidenote : This is what my new namecard would look like. What do you think?