Heroic Rendezvous Launch Party

I went for the launch party of Hong Kong fashion brand, Heroic Rendezvous last Friday at Zouk. The event was in celebration of the official launch of its label in Singapore by opening a second outlet in Suntec City mall.

Where’s Gillian?

The guest artiste for the event was Hong Kong celebrity, Charlene Choi (蔡卓妍), of Twins fame. As expected, during the press interview, she was hoarded with questions regarding the absence of the other half of the Twins duo, Gillan Chung (鍾欣桐). In case you have been living in a cave for the past few months, Gillian Chung was one of the seven female victims involved in a sex photos scandal with Hong Kong playboy celebrity, Edison Chen.

Charlene did not mention much about Gillian, except that she was taking a break from work. You can read more about the media report on omy HERE. She was calm and composed throughout the brief interview session. I thought she looked extremely gorgeous.

Here’s some photos I took of her.

Autographing and posing for cameras

Talking about Gillian

Looking good!

Still looking good even though her partner is missing.

Giving out prizes

Posing for picture with all

A good crowd was present on that day btw. Check out the pictures below. Don’t ask me why there’s a cheeky looking uncle there in the second picture, I also did not notice him till I posted this here, haha (maybe he was expecting Gillian instead of Charlene).

Young crowd at Zouk

Why the uncle look so sian?

Twins Alliance Singapore - a very large group of fans showed up to give support

Back to the Heroic Rendezvous brand - it is easily recognised via the hand-painted doll on their clothings. They are designed by a lady called Vanessa Chan. Here’s a brief description abut her taken from the press release:

While designing, writing and drawing are hobbies of Vanessa Chan, these are also a form of livelihood for her. Her belief, that pictures accompanying words convey a deeper meaning, led her to fully immerse herself in the fashion design industry since 1998. A woman of few words, she expresses her thoughts and inspirations in the graphics seen in her works.

Her previous works have been seen in Hong Kong and Taiwan’s publications. Apart from designing clothes for her brand Heroic Rendezvous, she has a range of accessories, posters and has worked with many Hong Kong, Mainland and Taiwan celebrities like Andy Lau, Joey Yung, TWINS, Jay Chou and many others.

I am not much of a fashion person lah, so I shun comment too much about the designs. Shall let the pictures do the talking. Enjoy.

If you like what you see, you can go buy them at their outlets in Central Mall or Suntec City mall.

Technorati Tags: heroic rendezvous, launch party, jiak kim street, zouk, singapore, Charlene Choi, 蔡卓妍, 鍾欣桐, gillian chung, edison chen, twins alliance, omy, omy.sg, vanessa chan, fashion show, suntec city, central mall, fashion brand, fashion label

VOTE for my paper Executive Look 2008

I blogged about this beauty pageant some time back. Well, the audition rounds are over and the list has now been narrowed to just twenty finalists. Is your friend among one of them?

Voting is now open to pick the Reader’s Choice Award - you can vote for your favourite contestant HERE.

Result of the Reader’s Choice Award will be announced at the my paper Executive Look 2008 Grand Finals on 4 April at Raffles City Shopping Centre. (I will be going down to take a look, do go down if you are free too)

Limited to 3 votes per day per participant. Result of the Readers’ Choice Award will not contribute to the final score of the contest. Winners of the voting contest will be drawn from the pool of participants who voted for the winner of the Readers’ Choice Award.

1st prize : $1000 cash
2nd prize : $300 Clarins Hamper
3rd - 5th prize : $100 Clarins Hamper
50 Consolation prizes: Makeover from Clarins

Not bad right? Even voting also can get to win prizes. Do take a look at the list of contestants and vote for fun lah, even if you do not know anyone in the top twenty.

Technorati Tags: mypaper, wobao, my paper executive look 2008, beauty pageant, raffles city shopping centre, chiobu, singapore girls

Off to Taipei!~

Taipei101 Tower, picture taken from Wikipedia

My flight is at 1pm later in the day, and I should be in Taipei by around 5.40pm, local time. This is a much awaited break from work. I haven’t travel anyway outside Singapore since my trip to Bangkok in August last year.

Travelling together with me are Rachel, Mark and Meiyen.

This will be my first visit to Taiwan and I hope we will have a rolling good time there.

PERSEPOLIS

I read the graphic novel and watched the movie. Both were intense stuff, worth spending money on.

PERSEPOLIS follows the story of Marjane Satrapi.

Satrapi is a strong-headed lady who grew up in a progressive Iranian family. Her family was involved with the communist and socialist movements in Iran, prior to the Islamic Iranian Revolution. She witnessed, as a child, the growing oppression of civil liberties and the everyday-life consequences of Iranian politics, including the fall of the Shah, the early regime of Ayatollah Khomeini, and the first years of the Iran-Iraq war.

Satrapi was sent to Vienna by her parents when she was a teen, and grew up there before returning to Iran in her adulthood.

PERSEPOLIS trails Satrapi’s life story from when she was a rebellious anti-establishment little girl in Iran to her transformation to an angry and lost teenager in Vienna, torn between her traditional Muslim beliefs and city values, and finally, to the strong, matured modern woman she is today who can reconcile both her traditional and modern values.

Put simply, it’s a coming-of-age story of an girl who lived through the major milestones of Iranian history.

Here’s the movie trailer to get a better picture of what PERSEPOLIS is about:

What I really like was the clean, black and white drawings together with the matter-of-fact, straightforward narrative. There’s no excessive dramatisation of the war and neither did Satrapi seek to portray herself as a vulnerable victim like most war autobiographies tend to lean towards.

For those who can spare the time reading, I highly recommend the graphic novel rather than the movie. The movie though enjoyable, had to sacrifice some depth and details in order to condense a whole life story into a 95 minutes animation.

Technorati Tags: marjane satrapi, persepolis, islamic iranian revolution, ayatollah khomeini, iran-iraq war, communist, socialist, vienna, french animation

No Flash vs No Photography

I visited the National Museum of Singapore a few days ago and was really surprised to see this new sign:

For readers who visit this humble blog on a regular basis, you will probably remember this entry I wrote in December last year, lamenting on not being able to take photos in the museum. Here’s the photo evidence:

I am not sure if my blog entry played a part in providing constructive feedback to the authorities at the museum (I would shamelessly like to think so because I won second place in a PHOTO blogging competition organised by them). If so, it appears to me they are people who are in touch with the people and willing to listen.

Kudos to this bunch of civil servants!

Technorati Tags: national museum of singapore, museum, singapore museum, singapore tourism, national heritage board, photography, flash, singapore, alvinology

Reservist discrimination in JobsDB.com?

Saw this post on omy’s forum by a person called 我的天 who claimed that local job search portal, JobsDB added a “reservist” option in their selection fields under “Personal Details => National Service”.

Please see screen captures as below:

This is a very touchy issue as it concerns all Singapore male CITIZENS who have served National Service. Does the additional field implies it may be used as a screening criteria for potential employers?

I have heard rumours that some companies have discriminatory hiring practices with regards to males with reservist liabilities, but chose to dismiss them as unfounded. I hope this is not happening as it will be extremely unfair to Singapore born males like me who have this extra burden saddled upon us.

Anybody have such experiences to share? Do voice your concerns or opinions in the comment box below.

Technorati Tags: singapore, citizen, discriminatory hr practices, saf, reservist, job search portal, jobsdb, jobsdb.com, singapore army, hr practises, national service

NTU triple room sharing parody videos

These students are ingenious! Check out their parody videos in protestation of the triple room sharing that the Nanyang Technological University (NTU) school administration is exploring for their hostels.

First up, to the tune of Micheal Jackson’s Heal the World:

Next, Dreamz FM’s 不值得:

Finally, the wonderful showroom itself:

Technorati Tags: dreamz fm, ntu, nanyang technological university, ntu hostels, triple room sharing, parody videos, singapore, singapore hostels, singapore university, campus life, 不值得, michael jackson, heal the world

The Dormitory Boys (后舍男生)

Got to know about this blog via my pal, Nash.

These two Chinese guys are really funny! They call themselves, 后舍男生, The Dormitory Boys and are known for their hilarious lip-sync videos. They have made quite a name for themselves by the way; there’s even a page dedicated to them at sina.com.

Check out their videos here:

Performing 不得不爱, by Wilber Pan (潘玮柏) and Xian Zi (弦子):

Performing A Public Affair, by Jessica Simpson:

Performing 童话, by 光良:

Performing Get Down, by Backstreet Boys:

Performing another Backstreet Boys song, As Long as You Love Me:

Finally, doing a Chinese opera performance:

Technorati Tags: 后舍男生, dormitory boys, back dorm boys, chinese duo, lip sync videos, backstreet boys, two chinese boys, 韦炜, vivi, 黄艺馨 , Huang Yi Xin, Guangzhou Arts Institute, xiao jing, 童話, fairy tale, 不得不愛, wilbur pan, pan wei bo, a public affair, jessica simpson, 弦子, xian zhi, 光良, chinese opera

Angels Added to Heaven

I believe it will be a heart wrenching experience for any parents to lose a child. The Sims lost three. All of them were just babies.

This is their blog dedicated to their angels, Nathaniel, Joash and Ashley.

Really painful to read… nonetheless, I admire their courage for pouring out their sentiments on a public platform.

Although I am agnostic and I do not know the Sims personally, I still hope God’s blessings are with them and they will be able to find peace.

Technorati Tags: angels, heaven, sims, babies, singapore, nathaniel, joash, ashley

Singapore’s “Super Brand”

I bought an Akira DVD player back in September 2006. If I did not remember wrongly, it only cost me S$45, which was a real steal. Other than being a cheapo, the other reason I chose Akira over more established brands was because I like to support local products. It is also the same reason why I use Creative mp3 players and headphones even though iPods are way cooler.

Plus Akira was the recipient of the Superbrands award, endorsed by IE Singapore:

Much to my disappointment, the player broke down just three months later in December. As it was a cheap buy, I decided not to kick up a fuss and bought a new DVD player of another brand instead to replace it.

Sometime in June last year, I decided to give Akira a second chance. Maybe the particular faulty set I had purchased was really, just one in a million and I had been too quick to condemn the brand. Since the player I bought still had a valid one year warranty, I sent it for repair at the Akira head office in Jurong East.

I didn’t really need the player anymore since I had already bought a replacement set. Also, it really was not worth the while travelling all the way to Jurong East (I live in Potong Pasir) just to exchange a $45 DVD player. Time and car petrol are both opportunity costs involved. Still, I went ahead as I was curious about Akira’s aftercare service standards.

The service staff did not disappoint and were quite friendly, promising me they will revert back in two weeks time latest. However, two weeks past… and there was not a single phone call. I took the initiative and called back instead, thinking they might be too busy. Again, the staff was polite, but mentioned they needed more time to repair the set. I made a few more calls in the subsequent weeks, but eventually forgot about it when I was caught up with my work.

Finally, in JANUARY 2008, a good 15 months from since I bought the cursed DVD player and HALF A YEAR since I sent it for repair, I called them up again. It was only then they acknowledged it was ready for collection.

I questioned the service staff why it took so long for them to repair the player and why no effort were made to contact me again since my last phone call in around July last year. He look at me sheepishly and did not know how to reply except mumbled something like “it takes time to repair” (duh!) and then promptly tried to change the topic by asking me if I wanted to test the repaired player.

As I am a mild-mannered person, I collected the player and left. I did not want to kick up a fuss because I believe it will be to no avail. I find no point in scolding the service staff who looks like a secondary school boy earning extra pocket money as it was not directly his fault and he will not be able to do anything about it anyway.

Instead, I chose to do what I think is the best way to deal with such bad experiences - made a mental note to myself not to buy Akira products again from now on and also, blog about it so my friends are warned too.

Technorati Tags: akira, IE singapore, superbrand, my akira, akira electronics, customer service, aftercare service, singapore product, electronics, consumer product, jurong east