Anyway, I did a quick research online for review, and seeing how every user loved it, I finally decided to get it.

Unfortunately, by the time that we went there next, it was no where to be seen! Bleh!

So back in January, while I was in another mall, I noticed the last set of Sleek & Curl hair hot iron and I quickly pounced on it before anyone else could get it. You are mine now!

This is what is in the box.

The flat iron, and a book manual, and a dvd that shows you the different ways on how to style your hair. It was actually very interesting watching the stylist do all those hairstyles on the model. Although I’m not sure if I had the deftness and dexterity to do them all.

Just on thing to note about the flat iron is that it uses this European pin. I cant plug it directly to the Italian power source. But all we had to do was to get the correct attachment plug for it and it works just fine. I bet that it’ll be fine for travelling too as long as there is the right attachment.

By the way, the Italians call the flat iron, a piastra. Directly translated it means plate. As in hot plate for cooking. So in a way, we are cooking our hair, yes?

It takes about 30 seconds to heat up.

Though the maximum temperature of the flat iron is 230 degrees C, I haven’t really experimented it at that heat. By right, I shouldn’t really worry since the flat iron is supposed to be made of ceramic, tourmaline and coated with teflon so its not supposed to be damaging for hair. But I’ll stick with 180 degrees for the moment. Its hot enough for me.

Dude, it should be. Its almost twice the heat needed to boil water!

Anyway, this is my hair in all its natural glory one day after shampooing.

Its naturally wavy, shaggy and thick. I thank my mother for that good gene.

Truth be told, I’m not all that good with hair styling. But I’m keen to try different hairstyles. Especially now, its so easy to access tutorials from youtube and blogs.

There was one time that I was so excited to try making victory rolls, so on impulse, I bought for myself, a pair of curling iron (I don’t remember which brand it was though) but it was so challenging to use that I hardly touched it after one use and it pretty much broke down by itself due to loneliness and misery.

What a waste of money.

Fortunately, this time round with my flat iron, my first time was fantastic and it was surprisingly so easy to use.

I’m not sure why I’m doing a Mariah Carey hand gesture here but anyway you take a small segment of your hair. Put it as close to the roots, squeeze and slowly pull it down.

One of the thing that initially put me off flat iron is because of the drags and tanglesI get from using them. I tried my little sis’s flat iron but it so tangle-o-rama. And my hair felt so dry afterwards. It worked fine for her though. Maybe its because of our different hair textures.

But the teflon works here since its actually very smooth and I don’t get that draggy and tangly feeling.

For the back of the head, it would be easier to pin with those hair clasp thinggy. And you repeat the steps till every bit of hair is straightened.

Tada! Now I has straight hair!

And if you want to curl your hair, you take the small segment of hair again, put it close to the scalp, squeeze the flat iron and turn it in and drag it down slowly.

Be careful with your fingers though, its quite hot!

I’m not sure if you could see it in the picture, but there are guide lines which is supposed to guide you in controlling the type of your curls.

Yes, my curls look very messy. I’m still quite new at this, but for a newbie, my curls look pretty impressive, yes? :-P

Anyway, tadah! Sexeh curly hair! I like! Then a bit of hair spray and it’ll stay sexeh for the entire day.

Hopefully my skills get better in time but I’m quite liking my toy for now. I’m glad I bought it :-)

Do you use a flat iron? What’s your experience like?

I love the mekap and the big hair I got for this picture :-)

Videoblogging to me was pretty easy. First was to record myself. Which is not a problem for me since I look good and have a sexeh voice. And then I transferred the video into the computer and started up Microsoft Movie Maker. Click here. Click there. And then render it into the final video. The final step was to upload it on youtube and wait for it to be ready for viewing.

All in all, it didn’t take such a long time. Depending on the length of the project, it could take about 1 to 5 hours.

And it was a lot of fun for me!

In time, I upgraded to a better camera, higher capacity SD cards and then to Adobe premiere elements where I had fun exploring different video techniques.

So last last year, while browsing through youtube, I noticed that there was an increase in videos posted in High Definition. I was very excited to see the quality of these videos.They definitely looked bigger and clearer. I was floored. And jealous since these videos are posted by regular joes like you and me.

I want to do that too! I was really keen on editing in HD again.

I got to play with the Canon HF10 Camcorder some while back. It was a really fantastic toy, and coupled with Adobe Premiere elements, it was an awesome duo.

But while I was really impressed by the quality of the video and the audio of the camcorder, its not really for me. I’m more of an amateur videographer so I dont really need all of its functions hence I don’t really want to make the investment. I prefer the convenience of a point and shoot camera which is compact and is able to take pictures and decent video at the same time.

I didn’t think that HD recording would be available for point and shoot cameras so soon. But some months after that, attending a couple of camera launches, point and shoots and even SLR’s are getting the HD recording feature. Oooh!

Hence, after a bit of research, I got for myself, the Canon Ixus 200 IS camera and Cyberlink Powerdirector 8 for editing the video.

By the way, if you are in Singapore, dont ever buy anything in the first two levels in Sim Lim Square.

Isn’t my camera a cutie? :-D

I wish that the camera was green, there was none, but its not a big deal. On the other hand, it was interesting to see the new fuctions such as the touchscreen for navigation. We also found out that we can flick it to navigate to the different pictures.

And there were a few new image features too like the creative light effect that lets me take shots like this :

Which is cute I guess but not really something that I’d be using on a regular basis.

Anyway!

Editing on the Powerdirector was fine enough. Initially it took a bit of a learning curve since I’m more used to the Premiere Elements interface. Simple things like fading to black, the sticky magnet connector (I don’t know if I’m making sense here) and even trying to make multiple text layers was a challenge.

So it took a while for me to figure out how to do the same things that I used to just click here, click here in Premiere Elements.

So close to hitting it with a frying pan

Eventually, I got to find out about the workarounds to my problems and in the end, it wasn’t such a painful transition.

But what I didn’t expect was this.

2 hours and a half to produce my video? Woah!

And the program took virtually all of my computer resources that I couldn’t even msn or surf the web without it lagging on me. And I’m working on a 4GB Ram computer mind you. So rather than sit aimlessly at the table, I could multitask and go off to cook or shower or take a nap.

And at length when the video finally rendered, I start to upload it to youtube only to be stunned by this.

Oh my Pisang Goreng. Another hour and a half! And after that, roughly another hour for the video to be digitalised and finally be ready for viewing.

Half a day for a 2 minute video? Half a day?!

You must be crazy.

As much as I love the quality of HD, I’m not too sure if its all worth the hassle.

Is it worth the hassle? Would you care if it is a high definition or standard definition video?

Sidenote : Did you check out youtube lately? They have this new function called the ‘Caption Action’ where the software tries to analyze the audio and add subtitles.

Suffice to say, it works for some but its mostly not accurate. What the heck is an itunes chicken? Amusing :-P

So annoying!

I’ve no idea what happened. Could it be my sleeping position or could it be this?

Thankfully, the pains were completely gone by Sunday. Maybe I should lock stickrinaz in the drawer just in case.

Its a cute but mindless game where you manage your own cafe by deciding on what to cook. Some of the food could take as fast as 3 minutes and some would be as long as 2 days.

But normally the longer it takes, the higher the profit and you could use the money to decorate and furnish your cafe. But the faster cooking ones lets you have more servings so that the customers will not lower the cafe rating and ensure that the traffic keeps on going.

One of the first few times that I played Cafe world, I’m quite amused mainly because of the time it takes to cook the item. Cheesecake takes 12 hours to cook? Halibut takes a day to cook? Really?

But regardless of of the unrealistic cooking times, I find myself really drawn to the food. It might be a cartoon, but it sure looked yummy! And who could turn away from a face like that?

I was intrigued enough to try to make it on my own and since I had most of the ingredients, I decided to make my own Smoked Salmon Latkes.

And its quite amusing to see friends on twitter quickly assume that I’m playing Cafe World!

Anyway, back to the recipe.

First you take two potatoes, peeled and sliced and then placed in the food processor and blend it roughly. Remove excess liquid and then put it in a bowl. Do the same thing to one onion. Drain the excess liquid and combine it with the potato.

With that, you add two whipped egg, some salt and pepper and three tablespoon of flour and combine together.

And then you take a small scoop and flatten it thinly in a pan of hot oil and let it fry till its cooked. If you like, you can leave the cooked pieces in the oven to keep warm while waiting for the rest to be fried.

Once the latkes are cooked, you could garnish it with anything you like like sourcream or even applesauce. Here I put some smoked salmon pieces. I wish that I had some creme fraiche and some caviar to add on top of the salmon but I don’t have them at hand.

Not sure if its the real thing but I like it anyway :-)

But I dont think that I’d be making it too frequently though, I don’t think its very healthy!

Sidenote : While we are on the topic of food, is this creepy to you?

Quite by chance, reading this review by Tea Noir made me so intrigued that I wanted one of my own. I couldn’t find it in Rome so I had to wait till I was back in Singapore to get my paws on one.

Ladies and Gentlemen, this is the Biore Cleansing Oil

Wait … what? Oil to clean your face?

If you could get over how greasy it is, oils from coconuts and olives actually make good cleansers. Its not supposed to cause acne since acne is a result of dead skin, hormones and bacteria. Not convinced? Try it! Smear some mekap on your hand and dab a little bit of olive oil and see what happens

Thank goodness we have formulated cleansing oils that doesn’t feel so greasy.

I’ve been using this cleansing oil since January and I’m liking it so far. Firstly its quite affordable at about $10 SGD and its quite easy to use.

First you take an immaculately mekap’ed woman. Me in this instance. Make a guess what mekap I am using :-P

And then you squeeze out the cleansing oil in the palm of your hand. I usually need just one pump, you can pump out more but I’m trying to be frugal since I cant find this in Rome :-P

The oil is transparent, smells nice and fruity but I’m not sure what fruit it is supposed to be though. Maybe grapefruit?

And then massage it gently all over your face and you’ll see that in no time at all, every bit of mekap gets dissolved.

Be it blusher, waterproof eyeliner, lipstick.

But be extra gentle with the eye area. I’ve read from a number of other reviews that the oil sting their eyes. I didn’t encounter the same issue personally though so I think it could be a new formulation or I have eyes made of metal.

And then rinse off the oil with water and admire how nice and clean your face is … complete with all the blemishes :-P

Of course I am going to cover my face because of how unglamorous I look like now!

The interesting thing is that after using the cleansing oil, my face feels dry. Which is wierd since oil isn’t supposed to make your face dry right?

So at this point of time, I’d slap on some moisturizer or if its time for bed, I’d follow up with the rest of my facial care – Cleanser, Toner, Eye Cream and Moisturiser and then dream of pimple and wrinkle free skin.

Have you used the Biore Cleansing Oil? What do you think of it?

By the time we reached there, it was bustling with activity. All the way from the metro to the piazza, it was crowded with people. Cart guessed that there were about a good 30 thousand people when we reached there at 3. There were even more people streaming in as we left later.

Many of these people were wearing purple in a demonstration against Berlusconi’s corruption like the hiring of unqualified girls for his party.

I was hypothesizing that since purple in Italian is viola, the colour was chosen because it was close to the word violare, which means to violate.

There were an impressively large number of people carrying banners and marching around

But I was amused and most impressed at this very well made effigy. Everywhere the dummy went, the camera would follow.

And in this picture, he was probably trying to make the kid in the red coat cry by lowering the dummy close to the boy.

Eventually the speeches started and everyone was listening keenly to the speeches being done on stage. And all around me was cheering and clapping at what was being said.

Even though I couldn’t follow smoothly at what was being said, I thought that the event was very well planned and executed. Every speeches went back to back with no awkward pauses.

But what amazed me the most was the unity and the very public display of protest. And yet everything was very civil. What an eye opener.

I couldnt help but to compare it to Singapore’s own Hong Lim Park and all its regulations.

Rather than going into a tirade on how to say it correctly, let Teacher Marina show you how to say banana fritters in Malay correctly

And if you still want argue with me, I will goreng your pisang!

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