Marina’s Bloggariffic

If it isn’t my webhost going down for hours, its the ISP slowing everything down. I haven’t been able to access rinaz.net till this afternoon … This is agony!

Lets go have pizza!

Some weeks back, Nadnut and I were chatting on msn on the events that we were invited to. Though we both loved tech, we lamented at how nice it was if we were invited to beauty and fashion events as well.

I believe that all women, regardless of shape and sizes, love to look and feel good. Thats why it is always exciting for us to try out something new, be it clothes, or shoes.

One of them being Taaz.Com where you can play with virtual make up.

Hence, when Nadnut invited me to tag along with her to the Revlon makeup launch, I was so excited that I could not say no! I love Mekap!!!

I arrived at the Halia Restaurant in the Singapore Botanic Gardens where I saw a number of bloggers that I recognized as well as many other media representatives.

There was an opening speech by the Managing Director, Mr Art Miller and soonafter, we were introduced to Bree Sharpe, a Senior Trainer for Revlon who talked about the new ColorStay Mineral Collection and did a demonstration on one of the models.

The foundation had many nice features - it was long lasting, up to 16 hours, it had SPF of 10, as well as containing minerals such as rose quartz, mother of pearl and topaz. But what I loved about the foundation the most was that it was non irritating and even people with acne prone skin could wear it.

I listened to Bree retell her experience of travelling to different countries and how easy it was for other types of makeup to melt off in our tropical climate. The foundation, she said, lasted long enough for her jetsetting lifestyle and was gentle enough not to give her breakouts and it even healed her skin.

Coincidentally, I was at Watsons the day before and I noticed that it was already on sale, and Watsons is having a 20% sale off their cosmetics. So the foundation will cost about $26 instead of $29.90 :D

Next, it was time for celebrity make up artist, Andy Lee, to do a demonstration on using the 2008 Limited Edition Collection.

Watching him was like seeing a talented artist at work as he skillfully dabbed about the cosmetics on the models face and chatted amiably with the guests and shared with us the different make up techniques.

Doesn’t these look very pretty? I’m enamored by how beautiful the design of the eyeshadow collection are. Its like an artwork by itself! I thought the packaging rivals higher-end brand names but at a more affordable price.

I observed the other bloggers getting make up tips and impromptu eye make up from Andy and I desperately wanted to be made over too! But suddenly, I felt rather shy as all of the other bloggers were young, attractive, slim things … and I’m not :p

But Aaron was so gracious that he broke the ice and introduced Andy to me!

Andy Lee and a very smiley rinaz

I took a liking at him instantly as he was friendly and sweet man, who was generous in imparting his knowledge.

Here is a video (with thanks to Aaron as videographer) of Andy doing makeup for me!

Rinaz being made up by a mekap artist from rinaz on Vimeo

It was the most exciting experience that I had in a while. Me! Being made up by a celebrity make up artist! I was so enthralled! The day could not be any better.

Me, Feliza, Sabrina, Fidelis, Jessica, Art Miller, Esther, Nadia, Peggy and Averal

And thats when we had a goodie bag at the end of the day and uncharacteristically, I squealed out in delight.

Because in the bag, it contained :

• A ColorStay Mineral Foundation
• A ColorStay Mineral Blush
• A Renewist Lipcolor
• A 2008 Limited Edition - Floral Affair Blush
• A 2008 Limited Edition - Make a Sheen eyeshadow

How very generous! With that, I’ll be reviewing these makeup in a later post ahead :-)

Do you like mekap make up? What are your experience with them?

Related Links :

• Revlon ColorStay Mineral Foundation
• Revlon Limited Edition Collection
• Celebrity make up artist - Andy Lee’s Blog

Sidenote : I met Kenny Sia!

Recently, Brian was plurking about what we thought of local music. And the first thing that came to mind was ‘My one and only’ which was my ultimate favourite local song - I loved it for how romantic the song was.

Remixed by the beautiful Lum May Yee

I started typing out the lyrics and before I knew it, Brian invited me to attend the Rock the Sub at Timbre Substation to listen to Kevin Matthews, the original singer of the song.

And I was glad that I went!

Shiny (literally) happy people - The friendly Thomas, guitar player of the groovy people and me

Although the Timbre was dizzyingly full of people, I found myself enjoying the music tremendously, the band was really tight and sounded really good!

Here is a quick video overview of the event :

Kevin Mathews and the groovy people from rinaz on Vimeo

And of course, my favourite song :)

My one and only from rinaz on Vimeo

Do you listen to local music? What do you think of it?

Related links :

• Kevin Matthew’s Myspace
• Timbre - Host to Local Music

You might also be interested in :

• WOMAD - International Music
• Sojourn - Classical Music
• Klenengan - Gamelan Music
• Ministry of Bellz - Handbells Music

Sidenote : Saw a very beautiful sunset over the Clark Quay river yesterday.

How to do a lipdub from rinaz on Vimeo

You will need :

1. A music player.
2. A video recorder

Step 1 :

Choose a song for your lipdub. A happy and upbeat song would be great while a depressive song might not be the best choice.

Step 2 :

Choreograph the type of moves that you want to do for your lipdub. There are a number of moves that you could try such as the dance, the lip sync, the actor.

Feel free to experiment with different styles and remember you could also use props in your lipdubs!

Step 3 :

Now that you have decided on your moves, video yourself with the video recorder at the choice of your location.

Step 4 :

Upload your video and give your self a pat on the back for a job well done.

Done!

Sidenote : We did our first lipdub session yesterday and it went great! I hope that you join in. We need more footage!

Below is a work in progress to get you inspired :-)

Lipdub Project - Draft 1 from rinaz on Vimeo

What do you think?

One of my favourite things to eat is Fried Chicken. It might not be the healthiest food to eat, but the moment Juli asked me out for Fried Chicken, I could not say no!

The place

Arnold’s is located on the 2nd floor of City Plaza - which is quite recognizable by its very retro sign at the top of the yellow and orange building.

We went up to the second floor where there were already a few people who were queuing up for their food.

The place looked looked nothing extra-ordinary. There was no decoration to speak of, with simple orange plastic chairs and tables. Nevertheless it was full of diners enjoying their meal. This was a popular place!

The service

We queued up for a bit and upon reaching the counter, we took a look at the menu before finally deciding on the 2 person combo meal. We made an order to the enthusiastic crew at the counter.

After waiting for a few minutes for a table to be cleared, we eventually had a table. The food took another few minutes later.

The food

We had the side dishes first. The side dishes were pretty good. I’ve always liked coleslaw and this one was no exception.

As I’m not big on fries, we managed to change it with mashed potato. Juli thought that the mashed potato was very good. The consistency was thick and tasted robust with the flavourful gravy.

I’m not fond of fried potatoes, but the criss-cross fries were pretty good being crispy and hot.

I did not touch the fried buns, so I’m not sure how this tastes like. Its just me … The idea of eating bread fried in oil is a little scary to me.

But the highlight of the dinner was definitely the fried chicken!

Its not exactly fast food restaurant here, having to wait for at least 10 minutes for your food to arrive. But when it does arrive, you would have been glad that you waited!

My chicken was wonderful! Its came out hot and delightfully crispy. The meat was tender and you could taste how amazingly fresh it was. Oh my gosh!

My only qualm is that our meal isn’t exactly cheap having to spend about $10 each, especially when the presentation of the food could be be much nicer.

Regardless, Arnold’s was one of the best fried chicken that I ever had.

Here is a quick video response at the end of our dinner :

Arnolds Fried Chicken from rinaz on Vimeo

Do you like fried chicken? Whats the best fried chicken that you’ve had?

Related links :

• Official Website
• Other reviews by Yebber.com
• Click here to see a bigger view of the menu with price

You may also be interested in :

• BBQ Chicken at Cineleisure
• What is Ayam Penyet?

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