Reblogged from opinionehted.com:

Started in 1889, the Eastman Kodak Company has been part of all our lives. Much like today’s generation where terms like “Google” means search, or “Facebook me” means get in touch, the “Kodak moment” has been part of all of our lives, and has always meant a special moment in time that has been captured on film. Being a photographer, and one who was taught using film and processing my own film (and subsequently spending years in the dark), I can speak from my own experience and say that film is officially …

This is an excellent read for those who grew up with film. Is the ‘Kodak Moment’ dead?

The class provides the ingredients, mixing bowls, instructions and even cleans up after you! That’s the most awesome part

This is SH listening and fully focused on the instructions from the Ice-cream man.

My boss photo-bombing me! Lol

Ali pretending to make ice-cream when she was really making custard!

CeeCee and Steph hard at work

Me pretending to work somemore

Kim, the mastermind behind the operation. Thanks a ton Kim! Xxx

Steph’s super sexy mouch ring. I wants!

AA stealing G’s raspberry sorbet. Lol.

…and we ate ice-cream from the ice-cream buffet

…and more ice-cream

And MOAR ice-cream…

Till we could eat no more!

Oh wait. I spoke too soon! Hahha! Kim ate her own creation.

Voila! Chocolate ice-cream and Horlicks ice-cream!
It was a fun fun outing and I loved it! This is my first real cooking class in the new year and it’s a good start on my resolution list. Thanks again guys for making this so fun and special. Xoxo

I have to leave you with pictures of the funky customized stools at this place; I almost wanted to steal them!

Super cute right?

I have my recipe to master this long weekend, what will you be up to?

Chinatown is dressed up and the lifelike dragon is beyond awesome! The government is expecting a huge spike in births this year as I’m told that Dragon babies are The babies to have; like a Birkin, I assume? (Terrible analogy I know I know!)

Anyway, being brave, I pushed through the crowds at Chinatown with Raine, Luke and Dan the other night to dine on these heavenly noodles smack in the middle of Food Street/smith street. I also discovered really cheap foot massages here

These are the yummiest hand made noodles I’ve eaten. Pic- is the minced pork noodles with red bean sauce. We also ordered the most divine pork belly in soy sauce. Sadly I don’t have pics – we devoured it before I could take any

Another thing I’ve been meaning to do is get Bakwa. But with those crazy queues and insane prices, I think I’d best wait till after CNY to satisfy that craving. There’s no way I’m queuing for 6 hours for a slice of pork!

Oh, and since I’m going to be stuck in SG, I guess I will cook up a storm and post more pictures

Gong Xi Fa Cai!

Meanwhile, on the other side of the forest, it’s only Tuesday. Yawn!

I admit I’m not the best when it comes to art or wine and I don’t pretend to know more than I do. So while I’m shy to admit I know something, it’s not because I’m being a dick and think I know more about a piece of art than the person admiring the same painting on the wall I’ve been captured by.

The one painting that stood out today was this oil on canvas thing; it’s tragic I can’t remember what it’s called or who painted it. But I love it for its manic skull, obviously tremendously happy at being stuck in a giant sunflower. Such happy colours for death! And his expression is Priceless!

If I had the balls, I’d have inquired how much it costs. I didn’t.
Oh well.

The other thing I realised today is that I’m a traditionalist at heart – all my painting references are of the renaissance age. I don’t seem to like the other crap or conceptual art crap that everyone talks about – while I appreciate moving installations, I don’t think it’s a body of work that should be stuck under the giant “Art” umbrella. Same goes for pictures posted as paintings, blobs of paint thrown on a wall and walls painted one single hue of “solitude”. Wtf?!
Lazy much?!

The one giant painting that I don’t have a picture of, but I noticed the technique duplicated across exhibitors was painting with ash. Wow! The depth, the images, the old-world feeling is simply amazing.

So yes, the Japanese girls with their anime eyes and the kookie gallery assistants in their colour blocked clothes stood out. Did the art impress as much? Not too sure; you tell me?

The cute panda and the Litter. Litter as art. Sigh.

By Jarek Piotrowski, this one’s called Beautiful Paranoia. It’s eerie and beautiful at the same time.

New year’s eve was unplanned and as mentioned before we never figured anything out till much later in the evening. I wasn’t in the mood anyway, since my visit to the dentist in the morning left me with a million questions and scary thoughts about my regressing jaw; and on hindsight, maybe we should have stayed at home and watched movies or played inane videogames.

Such a Pac-Manish image. Can just imagine the skull as the little yellow dot...

So, my jaw is pushing in to my skull and the joints are rubbing against each other with no fluid to help the impact. Add to that, the fan shaped muscle that holds the jaw in place with the skull, ears, etc. is so tired of the stress, I think it’s screaming to give up. The pain thus radiates from the back of my left jaw to my skull. Nice, eh?

Furthermore, I’d like to point out that I’ve naturally perfect teeth and this hasn’t come about because I used braces to push my teeth back as a kid. And oh, my teeth are super worn out, not because I eat a lot, but because I grind them in my sleep apparently! (Did not know that! But then, snorers don’t know they snore either. Same thing.)

Level of pain – Imagine a wisdom tooth ache. Then multiply that pain by three. That’s how much it hurt. My painkiller/muscle relaxant is the kind that is given to post-op patients. I wasn’t complaining; at that point, I’d have conceded to an animal tranquilliser if it meant dulling the never-ending throb in my skull.

Crazy-feaky diagnosis right? I’ve two solutions -1. The doc proposed I should see an ENT as this might have links to my supposed adult asthma what with my jaw pushing into my air canal etc.
2. Depending on that diagnosis, he wants to use a reverse brace (is that the correct term?) to pull/push my jaw out to make my “bite” optimum and reduce the stress on the skull and surrounding muscles.

“WHOA! Hold on Mister! What was that again? A second opinion is needed, I say!”

Oh well, so this is how I waltzed in to the new year – with painkillers, at a bar I didn’t really want to be at, stuck in a sticky situation with a so-called-friend, that made me intolerant and annoyed with The Husband, resulting in him saying things he never should have said; which forced me to walk home (not a single empty cab at 4am), shoeless and (logically, there is NO WAY I can walk three kms in six inch heels and claim to have functional feet),  completely sober. Whew! Oh, another casualty of the evening, apart from my feet – my new, two of a kind, designer dress had a cigarette burn! A fruitcake was smoking in the club. Irresponsible Choot! I guess I should thank you for not setting me on fire, yep? *rolls eyes*

Day 1 of the new year began at noon, having settled for good old MacD’s. What a wonderful way to start 2012 – grouchy, hungover, with a junk food baby, lying on the couch comatose, watching The Husband play stupid first person shooter video games. Slept. Finished Modern Family S01 (thanks Miko).

The next day I baked too many chocolate chip banana muffins, took half a dozen to Dan and Raine with Sparky, sat by the swan lake and bitched and moaned and lay in the grass, got bit by ants, watched Dan inhale three cupcakes in one go, then swallow an entire Venti jug of coffee (mad funny result – super hyper boy), came home watched The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo in Swedish and cooked Raine dinner. Nothing like awesome friends to put one in a good mood for a tragic work week that followed.

You still reading? Awesome!
The week leading up to New Year had 3.5 working days and I was on MC for one – the sickie had already set in… The week after, my immune system threw in the towel and I succumbed to the office cough/cold/flu epidemic. I spent two days working from home as my team was away and the crisis was an almost near-death experience! (Kidding). Yes the meds are trippy and I still have a granny cough and a Darth Vader voice, but the excitement that descended on us in those two days that were supposed to be sedate was incredible! I thank my stars I’ve such awesome backup – my Super Boss helped me do that stunt from the movies, where the heroine dressed in a black cat suit slides-under-the-shutter-just-as-it-closes, with a few minutes/ inches to spare (figuratively speaking of course). My heart had a workout it won’t forget! I had to go lie down after. HAHAH!

Also, remember that resolution I made to bake new stuff every month? I think I’ve lost my mind – I’ve baked two kinds of coconut cupcakes, breakfast muffins with jam centres, banana chocolate chip muffins and a chocolate cake with stout – (for The Husband’s birthday), all in week one of January! It does beat the hell out of shopping for clothes and it makes me infinitely happy to create yummy things

This is just the baked stuff. You’ve not seen the other storm I cooked up.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the forest, I still can’t spell “receipy” and I can’t eat all the stuff I bake lest I wear out my lower mandible. So I guess my wonderful colleagues will be in luck again this week; they’ll get to sample a chocolate cake with stout!

As I sign off, take a look at this ridiculously funny Bruce Lee video montage set to the tune of Die MF Die by this band called Dope; yes the lyrics kept bringing me visions of Samuel L Jackson’s obsessive use of the word in one of my favourite movies. So while you chuckle with me, do spill your tale of gore and glory from the New Year? As for me, I’ve a feeling the other weeks of the year are going to slink around with an inferiority complex because they’ll never be able to live up to the example set by week one No?

Christmas this year was the complete opposite and I don’t know what I’ll be doing come New Year. Unlike 2010, where we partied by Gosh’s BF’s poolside, this year feels more laid-back and I think I’ll end up staying home or going to a house party. Getting older does equate to being staid, I guess

The Year that was –

Nicole and Anu visited and we had so much catching up to do. I learned to colour my hair and figured that having straight hair would be the only way to make sure it grew to a sensible length. I tired of that soon enough and I’m back to my curly mop of hair; I LOVE it!

Then there was ire at the Puppy Mills that took over my existence and my heart went out to the drowning dogs in BKK.

Travel was spaced too far between because of lack of planning and too little leave leverage at work; but travel I did – India for the little bro’s wedding was a squeeze, Bintan was refreshing and I was a spoilt princess in Penang. In the year to come, I’ve promised my best mates I’m going to bring in our 30^th birthdays together; this will mean travel to London and hopefully Greece. Hurrah!

Work however, took its toll this year, and for the first time I’ve felt like I should give up. There’s no excuse for the level of stress that led me to the ER at midnight.

2011 was momentous because I took the leap and tied the knot. And then we were so exhausted we stayed home for a week getting over our hangovers! But getting married meant not having a flatmate anymore. I do miss her; she’s perfect. She’s the one who taught me to shop online and I even risked buying my wedding dress off a website!

Among other fun things done this year, I’ve explored the world of TV series and have been hooked on to 2 Broke Girls, New Girl, Awkward (made by MTV and is surprisingly good), Weeds, The Mentalist, and the HBO series Game of Thrones – The addiction for Game of Thrones grew so severe, I bought the books (online shopping WTF) and am now halfway through the third one! All the characters I end up getting attached to, die. It’s a bit tragic and plenty annoying, but I end up switching between chick-flick novels I borrow from the NLB. Yes, I’m a lifetime member at the National Library. HURRAH! This means more Voltaire and Homer!

Movies that WOWed me this year were Bridesmaids and Midnight In Paris. The latter, I plan on owning and watching multiple times once it’s out on Blu Ray; if you haven’t watched it yet, but love your poets and writers from the “magical age”, I urge you to catch this one. Woody Allen left me awed.

Bridesmaids made my WOW list because it was so crass, unexpected and real (and unreal); it left me feeling incredulous, euphoric and stunned and made me laugh so hard I missed dialogue! Do you really need another reason to love a movie?

Honourable mention should also go to Delhi Belly for showing Hindi cinema what “path breaking” means. A well-made, fun film in English, straight from Bollywood!

Musically, it has been a year of discovery; these are the bands who stood out – I Am Giant (caught them when they opened for STP), Tracer, Band of Skulls and of course Adele.

Have I kept last year’s resolutions? Hell Yeah! It’s been a marvelous year of love – both human and doggy, and there have been many mad memories to keep me smiling on droll days. If I could change one thing I’d have imported Bruce (mini schnauzer #2) this year instead of waiting till 2012 for him to arrive. I’m just impatient.

2012 has big boots to fill ~

1. Attend professional cupcake/baking classes as I’ve been baking out of cookbooks thus far and that’s been super; so why not perfect it? – Look at the picture below!
2. Volunteer with a shelter for pets. Look at what PINK did #win
3. BLOG MORE OFTEN.
4. Wipe the dust of my 50mm lens and work it.
5. Indulge in that adventure sport thing I keep meaning to do, but don’t.
6. Take up a sport while still doing Yoga.
7. Learn to professionally groom Sparky.
8. Bake a new kind of cake/cupcake/bread every month.

I’d like to leave you with these awesome stories from Wired, my favourite site on the web – How to have fun like monkeys, whales and foxes (will make you smile and go “AWWWW” I promise), and 1 Million Spiders Make Golden Silk for Rare Cloth (I’ve new respect for creepy-crawly-shudder-inducing-spiders).

*Well, So long 2011, and thanks for all the fish… errr… cupcakes?

Coconut cupcake with Lime & Cream Cheese icing. Don't you wish you could taste it?

This is my first Christmas as “Mrs. Banerji” and because I’ve traveled every single Christmas for the past four years, I’d almost forgotten what the Christmas spirit was supposed to feel like. Thankfully, I’ve a husband who is more grounded than I am and together, we cooked Christmas dinner and invited our closest mates to celebrate with us.

I’ve realised that as we grow older, we will make our own traditions and keep some of the old ones – both from his family and mine to pass on to our offspring. And no matter what crosses or grudges we carry, they eventually heal and we will move on and hopefully forget if not forgive; Have you noticed, doing this is strangely easier at Christmas Time!

I’m glad for so many things this year – it’s been wonderful and I feel blessed. I hope 2012 brings more joy and lots of sparkly things our way.

Here’s to family, love and friendship! Merry Christmas everyone! xoxo

This year, I’m determined to not do anything mad or go out and party. I just can’t bring myself to admit that I’m growing older. I guess I correlate growing older with inching closer to that beautifully varnished gleaming black coffin.

I hate the thoughts that plague me – when I’m 80, IF I’m 80, will I have blue hair? Will I have wrinkles for every month I’ve been alive? Will I have sight to accompany sound? Will I be alone?

*Sigh * Raine slept over this Friday and we watched movies, drank too much wine and ate a lot of cheese, crackers and pizza. That was a perfect “party”. It wasn’t stressful and I had two loving and equally mad people to keep me company.

On the day itself, I will be at work – business as usual. I’ve taken my birthday leave on the 11^th and R has planned to whisk me away to Penang and got me crazy presents (I’ve not opened them yet, even though I know what they are). My cool colleagues at work have agreed to my request and will donate my birthday fund money to The Soi Dog Foundation. These guys at Soi are helping save the strays and abandoned pets in BKK who are stranded due to the floods and provide them with food, shelter and medical attention.

Aside: I’ve donated twice and you can too. Click here to send them anything from $5 to $10,000. Every little donation counts and you will be saving a dog/cat. I’ve been thinking of all these rescue efforts and I know that I will take time off sometime next year and go volunteer to help out. I feel awful not being there, not being able to love and care for those poor creatures right now. But I guess in this moment, all we can do is help by donating whatever little we can and possibly help to re-home them once the floods subside. 

While we are on the topic of dogs and rescuing and re-homing, take a look at this video of a dog called Daniel. He survived the gas chamber in the US – yes, some states still kill unwanted dogs like the Nazis killed Jews. Fucking heartless humans.

In dog years, I’m waaayyyy beyond my age to be alive. I’m thankful for every day that I wake up and for the people who love me, who make me who I am. So this year as I curl up on the couch with my boys and a glass of wine, waiting for the clock to strike midnight, I won’t despair. I’m going to grab this last year of my second decade and plough through it with wrinkles, poor eyesight, grey hair and all, to meet the next head on. It will be epic.

*As a poet once intoned, “I grow old … I grow old … I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled.”

Happy Birthday to me indeed!

—- Update—- 13 Nov

It was a lovely, silent celebration. The brief holiday was more than what I anticipated and everything, including the mad thunder and lightning was magical.

Here’s a collage of everything that happened on and around the 9th.

Oh the celebration!

Living on this sunny, tropical island has its share of shoe-challenges what with the weather ranging from HOT to rainy to super rainy! All our walking is done from the MRT to the mall and inside malls and while that may not seem like much as you read it, trust me, it is a LOT of exercise, especially when laden with shopping bags. While you’ll see many well-shod feet from ballerinas to ridiculously high platforms out for a stroll in Botanical Gardens or on Orchard Road, you’ll find most of the populace goes with flip-flops; I’ve seen flip-flops in all varieties and some  cost as much as a pair of Steve Madden Boots!

I’m a beach bum and I love slippers as much as the next Singaporean, but every once in a while, I do wish it was cold like in Delhi or HK in November/December. That’s the only time I would be able to wear my boots, layer my clothes and possibly wear earmuffs and cute sweater-dresses topped off with sexy jackets.

There; I said it. That’s my wish – To be someplace that’s cold, cold, cold, so that I can bring out the fur or snuggle up under flannel blankets, drink hot chocolate, watch Roman Holiday and wish for the tropics.