life is....: July 2009

7.17.2009

Thrilling.. a Singapore Blogathon 09!

update - blogathon afterwords:
Sometime in between there were negative comments made online about the Blogathon. Well, @twistedian wrote up a wonderful response to that. Kudos to Ian!

update - blogathon finale:
Congratulations to those who have won and big hug to all who survived! :D
@victortan did a good roundup of the blogathon.

update - blogathon online:
Follow #bthon on Twitter OR featured microsite on TANGS.

Hmm okay I've been lazy so stopped blogging for a while, it's bad cause now I have so much content piled up!! But here's something exciting for the bloggers and people who follow blogs. A 24-hrs Blogathon!! Tonight @TANGS!

Quick overview of Blogathon 09 on YouTube. Plus, some behind-the-scenes photos from @patlaw.

These are the ten bloggers featured:

Claudia

Fashion Nation (Dottie/Stephie)

Greenlaundry

Hillary Chan

Jayden

Nadnut

Nicholas Aaron Khoo

Sheryo

Some people say blogs are outdated!? I think not really! I feel it's very different from Twittering or Facebooking, and they should be maintained separately but inter-connectedly. Watch live how these ten top Singapore bloggers do it! Show them your support! Vote for your favorite blogger!

Definitely head down if you're free tonight. ;)

More details on Blankanvas.

7.03.2009

MJ forever "alive" on the web..

I came into office last Friday morning, logged onto my TweetDeck and was overflowed with "MJ" or "Michael Jackson" tweets. Some positive and some negative. I read around to find out more about that piece of breaking news.

For a celebrity, who just passed away and who shined with fame and influence to the music industry, I thought it was basic courtesy to not speak ill of the dead (even if you seriously didn't like/appreciate MJ's work). But apparently, some people enjoyed making jokes out of the incident. Kudos to Tremendous News! for standing up to those insensitive peeps. (I figured I shall be more polite than those ppl here.)

On the contrary, there are many great tributes to MJ distributed on the Internet. One very much commendable job is the BillieTweets!

Found on imeem: Better on the Other Side - a tribute to Michael Jackson featuring The Game, Usher, Chris Brown, Boyz II Men, Mario Winans, and Polow Da Don.

Michael Jackson may be gone forever, but traces of his music and dances will continue to be shared amongst everyone who remains, on the World Wide Web...

Find something MJ on the Internet?
Leave a link in comments!

7.01.2009

Cupcakes & Zhiyu's 1st birthday

CUPCAKES NIGHT 2!

Over the weekend, my sis, qiqi and I baked cupcakes (again) to celebrate xiaoyu's 1st birthday :) The recipe was taken from Children's First CookBook by Annabel Karmel.

Making cupcakes...
First heat the oven to 180°C or 350°F. Then prepare the following.

2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla extract
125 g sugar
125 g butter
125 g raising flour
chocolate chips

This makes about 30 small cupcakes.

From previous experience, the cupcakes were too sweet and greasy. So we tweaked the formula a little - reducing both sugar and butter - to suit our taste preferences. (experiment with the right amounts for yourself!)

Mix all the ingredients together!

Add in some flavor! We threw in some chocolate chips, but raisins or blueberries would work too.

Lay out paper cones onto the tray and fill each cone to 1/2 or 2/3 the capacity. Put in the oven! Bake for 18 to 20 mins. (watch out for the color yourself!)

Meanwhile, prepare icing...

25o g icing sugar
125 g butter
1 tsp water
coloring

Again play with the proportions to get the right taste.

Baking for kids is simple. Just mix everything up and add any coloring you would like! We had green and pink. Then put the icing in a corner of a small plastic bag. Cut off a tiny corner.