Marina’s Bloggariffic

There were so much fun, smiles and laughter that made it so memorable :)

After fighting the traffic during the mad after work rush, I arrived at the Mint museum where the Yebber first birthday bash was held - I haven’t been a yebber member for too long, but I’ve always enjoyed reading reviews about different services. Thus I was pleasantly surprised to be cordially invited by Claudia to grace the event.

One of the first people that I saw was the pretty trio - Zihui, Bobo and Trumpat at the reception. Though I met them for the first time,  they were extremely amiable. They handed me a set of clicky toy, a set of bingo card as well as a namecard for me to stick on.

I proceeded to enter the Mint Museum and there I met a few friends already there. Chillicraps, Sheylara, Sylvia and even Daphne, whom I thought was not coming according to her twitter.

Proud of my black and white dress, I proceeded to show it off by swishing it around :D

<shameless> Nice huh? :D </shameless>

As we had some time before the event officially started, together with CC, and Sylv, we proceeded to explore the museum :

On the first floor where the mint shop was located, it was interesting enough for us to get behind the counter to take a closer look at the different toys for sale. One of them was a metal chicken that laid eggs as well as a futurama looking metal robots. I bet that on normal days, we probably wont be allowed to enter the area!

The second floor was where the collectibles were located. It was interesting to see similar looking toys coming from all parts of the world. One of the things that came to mind was how similar the museum was with the Museum of Shanghai Toys that I visited last year. But the difference was that the Mint Museum focused on toys world wide.

Cool a Beatles action figure! I must have accidentally cut Paul McCartney out. But they look a little scary though.

What on earth is the “Flip your wig” game? I guess kids from the past are as wierd as kids nowadays too.

I think I used to play with one of these pillow dolls when I was a kid.

Something in the way Donald Duck is looking at the other Donald Duck.

Cool! Charlie Chaplin action figures!

The original Matchbox figures!

CC seemed quite perplexed with this remote control toy peacock. I’ve no idea why though.

The third level was where the Childhood favourites collection was held. There I saw a couple of freaky (but interesting) looking toys.

Oh my. I wouldn’t want these to suddenly be alive and haunt me as I go to sleep!

This could be the Original Chucky!

There is something peculiar about this.

Say what you like, but I love golliwogs! They are so cute and are always smiling :)

We could not see more though as the announcement for the event to start was going on. I missed out on seeing the ‘Characters’ and ‘Outerspace’ segments.

After writing down in the guestbook, I was in time to watch the opening ceremony by Leonard and Polarbear

In this, they explained about Yebber - how it started, who are the people behind it and what was it all about.

But before too long, it was already time to eat!

Kudos to the Mint Cafe! All the food that I had was  extremely tasty! I had yummy calamari, scallops, breaded shrimp and my crabmeat linguini. I especially loved the tomato bruschetta that I had. It was crunchy enough, and had the right ingredients put into it. Mmm yummeh! More please :)

Later on, the organizers started the bingo game which was surprisingly a lot of fun!

The host will call our some number at random and then we’d push out the number called. As each person has a different card, the results will be different for everyone. The person wins when a full row or column was pushed out.

I’m not sure about the others, but it was a nerve wrecking time for me as I almost had one row filled up! So close and yet so far …

Anyhows, before too long it was time for the cake cutting ceremony, which was kind of odd as there weren’t anyone singing a birthday song! How can there be a birthday party with no birthday songs? :P

And then it was the time that a lot of people were waiting for - the lucky draw! There were a number of items from Creative that were put up as prizes, but I was only eyeing on the Creative Zen.

In the end, some dude called Daniel Cerventus won it! Gah!

Nevertheless, I had a lot of fun and I got to meet a number of interesting people. One of them was Lai Chow, whose long hair was what made her distinguishable and stood out from the rest of the people. You probably cant see it from this picture, but her hair went all the way to her hips!

I also met Bernice which was an interesting encounter. She was sitting comfortably on the sofa, surrounded by her entourage and one of the first things that she said to me was, “Nice Glasses”

To which I replied, “Yes! I like it. It makes me look like a sexy secretary!”

It was the start of a lovely friendship and we started camwhoring right there and then.

So much so that Paddy got envious and tried to barge in our camwhoriosity.

To which, when looking back at this picture, I am suddenly inspired to do this :

Neutro Roberts : Get that sexeh scent that drives women wild.

*Disclaimer : Although I do go crazy over Neutro Roberts scent, both Paddy and Bernise are not aware of this blatant product placement

Thank you Yebber Organizers and Mint Museum for such a lovely time. I really did enjoy myself. And happy birthday!

Here is a quick video clip of a couple of yebbers :

Yebber @ Mint Museum from rinaz on Vimeo

Bonus! A couple of bloopers vid :D

Links :

• Mint Museum
• Yebber

Links to other blog posts :

• Alice
• Bobo
• Chillycraps
• Claudia
• His food blog
• Jean
• Sabrina
• Sheylara

P.s Its spelled and pronounced as  Bruschetta (brus-ket-ta). NOT brushetta (bru-shet-ta)

Having already attended various talks such as the Nexus 2007 as well as the E27 Unconference, and finding it interesting, I was most keen in participating in the Interesthink event. It was promoted as a local version of TED which I am enamored with as TED conferences revolves about ‘Ideas worth spreading’. One such presentation that left me floored was the one done by Marjora Carter, where she talks about how to create a sustainable environment.

I arrived at the National Library early Saturday morning and went up to the elevator into the POD where the most spectacular view of the city can be seen. From the glass panels, you could see various landmarks like the Shaw Towers, Suntec City and the Esplanade.

I met a couple of blogger friends whom were already there - Farinelli, NTT and joined by DK, Claudia, Preetam as well as several other attendees.

In due time, the event was declared opened by  the organizers and the speakers stepped up to the podium.

The first person to do his presentation was Dr. Larry Francis who presented about ‘Malay culture, musical practices and Islam of the Malay world’. He asked the audience why it was that music seemed to be discouraged in Islam currently when there were so many musical instruments in the Islamic Golden age.

Next was Mr Grant Pereira - an enigmatic man whom was extremely passionate in environmentalism. He talked about his work in Greenpeace and how there were many things that were happening in Singapore that was hurtful for the environment. One of them being the issue of land space for housing and yet there were many golf courses being built.

The next speaker was Mr Alex Au who spoke about The pros and cons of prostitution. His was a rather strange presentation, with him walking here and there. Personally for me, the topic was not something new. And I found out that there are a number of the audience were still not comfortable about the issue of prostitution.

Next up was Ms Lim Choo Hin who is a cancer survivor. She talked about the issues that she faced while having cancer and candidly showed some pictures with patients who lost one or both sides of their breasts to cancer, “Ah, this is me!” and finally she closed by saying, “If you feel defeated, life is over”

And one of the final speakers was Mr Kan Lume, an acclaimed filmmaker. At the first glance, it was interesting for me to notice his right hand. It had the words ‘Film Maker’ in black ink and I realised later that it was actually a tattoo. It was to remind and motivate himself in the path that he has chosen. He narrated a story about his childhood and how it inspired him to become what he is today.

All in all, I thought that the event was a good way to spend a Saturday, getting to listen to a number of fascinating speakers, surrounded by friends in a beautiful location. Here is a quick video snippets of the event :

Snippets of the InteresThink event from rinaz on Vimeo

Amazingly, at the end of the event, I felt mentally drained out trying to absorb all of the information that I heard today. There were many other people who felt the same way too! It was kind of like the same feeling doing maths sum for an hour straight :P

In the end, the Interesthink event isn’t exactly like TED, but it was still a pretty good start. I enjoy talks such as these and the interesting side to it is that, for some reason, it reminded me so much of a Secondlife event - meeting other avatars, listening to the speaker, in a nice environment.

Did you attended the Interesthink event? Have you ever attended in events such as these?

Sidenote : Come and join me this saturday for the Social Media Breakfast as well as the Web 2.0 - Emerging Industry Series. Both of them are held at the same time though. Can I clone myself into two?

Links :

• Interesthink Website
• Links to other media
• Ian Dravid blog entry
  

And huge credits to the wonderful NTT for recording the audio of the event :)

I was in desperate craving for chocolate and I hauled my sis and I, over to the Esplanade for a dose of Max Brenner goodness. I was joined with the lovely Mintea and her sister.

Enthusiastically, we ordered a number of items from the menu :

It was all good, but we did not feel the high yet and we ordered more! :D

Mintea had the Italian thick chocolat served in a hug mug. There are no handles, so the drinker would have to wrap their hands and hug the utensil to drink it. Doesn’t the colours of the chocolate look absolutely beautiful? I think I’ll get this the next time I visit :)

And this is my Dark Chocolate Suckao. The utensils were clear cut enough, I poured the milk in, and then stirred the chocolate buttons in to melt it. But for a few moments I was clueless at how to eat the chocolate.

Upon close examination, I saw that there was a hole in the spoon which doubles up as a straw. Henceforth, the reason why it was called, Suckao!

All four of us in unison : “Aaaah! I see!”

And that was when the high kicked in and that we finally got our euphoria from the heavenly chocolate. It was really really good. Pure happiness slipped down my throat and radiated through my body.

And we all just sat there for a full 10 minutes, grinning at each other, being all happy and contented.

LE SIGH!!!

After our chocolate trip, we said our goodbyes, sis and I headed up to the esplanade library. I think that this could easily be one of the most beautiful libraries in Singapore.

Photo credit by Night86mare

It was a lovely place to hide away in the tranquility, by the beautiful sea. By then, Cartcart was already online and I walked around the library surreptitiously with the eee pc opened facing outwards and skype webcam on to show Cart the surroundings.

Already some people were staring at me strangely as I walked around. But I’m learning to be a little more thick skin :P

And that was when I heard the most beautiful voice emanating from the library cafe and was instantly drawn to it.

Olivia Ong at the Esplanade from rinaz on Vimeo

She sounds so beautiful.

I found out later that that she is Olivia Ong, a 23 year old Singaporean singer who went to Japan to further her career as a singer.

She was here for the annual Mosaic Music Festival which features artists from all over the world and all sorts of genres. There are so many exciting lineups. I love it! I want to go!

Shamelessly, I asked for a picture with her :

And smilingly, she said yes, and she hugged me! Olivia Ong hugged me! My euphoric feeling went up another notch :)

After the encounter, sis and I headed towards the carpark where we encountered an acapella group singing and they sounded really good.

Nanu at the Esplanade from rinaz on Vimeo

And I started dancing :

What an awesomely spectacular day :)

Esplanade related posts :

• Max Brenner with Carcart
• Mosaic Festival 2006
• Trip to esplanade in 2005

Its been about a month now that I’ve been using the eee pc. So far, its been pretty good. It is really handy to have especially while waiting in public. Just yesterday, while waiting for my turn at the customer service, I was so engrossed that I missed my turn! :P

Using Skype with webcam on the eee pc

I’m definitely getting used to it. There is a couple of neat programs that I enjoyed using. In fact, I could touch type with no problems now. The interesting bit is that when I use regular laptops, sometimes the keys seems unfamiliarly large!

It took a lot of hair pulling, but finally I could install Gimp

However, one of the downside is that, once the novelty has worn out, my insatiable mind started to get frustrated at the extreme difficulty in trying to do the simplest things like changing the wallpaper and installing programs in easy mode.

After trying several sites, this thread was the only one that worked for me

Nevertheless, its kind of amazing the responses that I had while using it in public. Many of the people who sees it would be exhilarated by it.

Like some of these people here :D

An engrossed Attilio on the eee pc

A happy Claudia on the eee pc

DK promoting the eee pc

Farinelli holding the eee pc proudly while NTT looks in jealously

CC and Mintea looking good next to the eee pc

Nadnut with the eee pc

It even attracted the attention of a stranger while I was blissfully engrossed between sips of coffee and surfing the net. My womanly instincts noticed someone peering over my way.

It was a man. He was using a subnotebook too – a Kohjinsha. Instantaneously we bonded and spent time postulating about the merits of subnotebooks.

His Kohjinsha and my Eee pc look like siblings!

Moral of the story : Everyone should get a subnotebook because owning one immediately makes you more attractive to the opposite sex.

Links :

• My first look at the eee pc

Disclaimer : I dont work for Asus :P

On Valentines day, I spent the evening sweating with a tall, dark and muscular man. After we were done, I was left tired, but feeling really good!

This is Nicolas in all his sweaty glory after a cardio workout. He’s a fitness instructor for the sports council. I was introduced to this workout class when fellow blogger friend, Lizan recommended it. And for the past few weeks, my friends, Lizan, Dolly and I has been attending cardio-mix sessions with him in the hopes of becoming more fit.

The first session was pure torture. I didn’t realise that it was so high impact!

As soon as we entered the room, Nicholas started to bark the instructions … “Grape Vine! Easy Walk! Double! Step Touch” and he would laugh maniacally motivate us when he noticed us slowing down.

It was so exhausting, I thought I was going to die! And that was when he announced, “Alright, that was your warm up. Lets start our session”

It was the longest 60 minutes of my life. For an entire week my body ached and felt beaten up. Yikes!

And now after going for a couple of sessions, it is still tiring, and many a times my coordination is completely off. But I think I’m slowly getting a hang of it. I am looking forward to the next sessions.

Here we are after our cardio session. Though I look completely unglamorous in here (while Lizan and Dolly still look amazingly fresh faced) I feel really good. Its been such a long time since I felt that rush. Its a great feeling :)

Do you exercise? What do you do to keep fit?

You may be interested in :

• I am fat
  
• Yoga makes me feel sexy
• My first time inline skating!
• Singapore Sports Council Website

Sidenote : On monday, I went for my first class of level 2 yoga. The next day, I felt like the after effects of running the marathon. Yikes!

I joined the pingsters this evening to Decoder’s Cafe for a round of board games. I love board games!

I arrived a little late. I missed out seeing Nicole and Claudia as well as the Yu sheng. Neverthless, I had a lot of fun playing the games with the ones remaining. One of the most exciting games that we played was Jurassic Jumble where you swap cards with other people so that you complete a set of dinosaurs.

I think I got a little carried away playing the game :P

I like Jurassic Jumble from rinaz on Vimeo

TWO! THREE! TWO! Hahahaha!

Links :

• Farinelli
• Claudia Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3
• Daphne
• Yuhui
• Priss
• CC
• Nicole
• Ah Wei
• Plaktoz

Recently, fellow pingster, Chillycraps, organized a mini gathering to watch the Complain Choir. Having already watched the original Helsinki Complain choir, I thought that it would be interesting to watch the Singaporean version live.

Here is a short montage of the event as well as some words from Chillycraps, NTT, Mintea and Nicole :

Complain Choir - Singapore from rinaz on Vimeo

Did you watch the Complaint Choir? What did you think of it?

Links :

• Lyrics to Complaint Choir - Singapore
  
• Complaint Choir Website