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Meeting Yasmin Ahmad – Award Winning Director

Remember my post about the adorable Tan Hong Ming and thoughts about Interracial Relationships some while back?

Recently, I was privileged to meet acclaimed director, Yasmin Ahmad, the director of the Tan Hong Ming as well as various other notable videos. She was here to grace the exclusive screening for MCYS on an advertisement entitled, ‘Family’

Rooftop at the screening room, Singapore
Charming view from the rooftop of the screening room

I reached the Screening Room, rather late after a staff day out, being unfamiliar with the area, my sense of direction gone and rather traumatized by the after working hours road conditions!

rinaz at the screening room, Singapore
Rinaz poses by a wall featuring Federico Fellini

When I finally entered the theater, they were already halfway through playing Yasmin’s other works, such as How do you spell Dinosaur and The little Indian Boy.

To call the videos emotional would be an understatement! Mintea, who was sitting beside me and I were already fighting hard not to tear up through the showcase.

mintea, yasmin ahmad and rinaz at the screening room, Singapore
Mintilicious, Yasmin Ahmad and Sexeh Rinaz

When the lights came on, I finally saw her – Yasmin Ahmad right across me, sitting like a regal queen. She started sharing her experiences on being a director. How she faced prejudices from many because of her being a Woman as well as being a Malay. I immediately related to that, being a Malay Woman myself.

I started wondering how she was able to stay strong in such adversities when Yasmin quoted a beautiful sentence “The Thicker and Deeper the Mud The More Beautiful The Lotus Grows” Which I thought was elegant and profound at the same time.

Soonafter, the screening of the new commercial started – it features a doting single dad, raising up his daughter.

Yasmin mentioned that a family unit does not always have to be perfect and complete unit and asked the bloggers on our opinion of the video.

The reaction of the bloggers were mostly positive. There was one blogger (I think it was scarlett) who said that being raised up by a single parent and is now a single parent herself, she could relate to the video.

Brian and Mintea
Ian Timothy is a little shy for pictures, so here is Brian and Mintea doing their best toothpaste commercial smile 🙂

Personally for me, I thought that the choice for the location was a little strange as it seemed a little dated. But that was when Ian Timothy mentioned that the location was a good choice as he emphatised, growing up in the lower class family.

There was a particular blogger who mentioned that because the majority of the population has a complete family unit, they may not be able to relate to the video – to which Yasmin humorously replied, “I watched ‘Finding Nemo’ … I laughed and I cried … But I’m not a fish!”

Here is a quick video montage of the interview :


Bloggers meet with Yasmin Ahmad from rinaz on Vimeo

Doesn’t she sound so queenlike? I think I could listen to her talk all day 🙂

And my Mum was so excited when she read an article about Yasmin Ahmad in the Malay Newspaper and she rushed to show it to me.

And what do you think of the advertisement video? Do you think that its okay for being in a single parent family? Are you able to relate to this video?

Links :

Updated : Goodbye, Yasmin …

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Being made up by a celebrity mekap artist – So exciting!

Some weeks back, Nadnut and I were chatting on msn on the events that we were invited to. Though we both loved tech, we thought of 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. It is always exciting to try out something new, be it clothes, or shoes.

Rinaz tries Taaz

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 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.

Bloggers and Media at Revlon ColorStay Mineral Collection Launch

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.

Bree Sharpe demonstrating the Revlon ColorStay Mineral Foundation

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.

Rinaz and Bree

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.

The Revlon ColorStay Mineral Foundation

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

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.

The Revlon 2008 Limited Edition Collection

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

Bloggers surround the makeup artist at the Revlon Launch

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 and slim.

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

Andy Lee and Rinaz

I was drawn to 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.

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

We had a goodie bag at the end of the day :

Revlon Goodie Bag

Inside 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 🙂

Related Links :

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Kevin Mathews and the Groovy People – spectacular!

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 top favourite local song – I loved it for how romantic the song was.

Lum May YeeLum May Yee

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!

Lum May Yee

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 :

And of course, my favourite song 🙂

Related links :

You might also be interested in :

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If you like Fried Chicken, you’ll love Arnolds

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.

Arnold's Fried Chicken, City Plaza, Singapore

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.

Arnold's Fried Chicken, City Plaza, Singapore

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.

Arnold's Fried Chicken, City Plaza, Singapore

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.

Arnold's Fried Chicken, City Plaza, Singapore

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

Arnold's Fried Chicken, City Plaza, Singapore

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

Arnold's Fried Chicken, City Plaza, Singapore

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!

Arnold's Fried Chicken, City Plaza, Singapore

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

My only qualm is that our meal isn’t exactly cheap having to spend about $10 per person, 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

Related links :

You may also be interested in :

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Social Media Breakfast 2 – Singapore

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!

Rinaz and Christina and Priscilla
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.

Plaktokz gets tagged

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.

Rinaz and Litford and Preetam
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

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.

Social Media Breakfast 2 - Singapore

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
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

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.

Dominic and Juzzywuzzy

For some reason Dominic and Juzzywuzzy‘s background 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.

Jayden draws Rinaz
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 🙂

Links to other blog posts :

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First glances at the HTC Touch Diamond

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 :

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I feel good

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 :

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

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Rinaz the accidental coffee genius at the Carte Noire Coffe Event

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.

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 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 anyway 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! 😛

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 8 pm! 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 🙂

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