Why We Should Proof-read Before Printing
Thursday, July 02, 2009
I snapped these pictures in Singapore. Worth some chuckles. For me at least. =P

Here's the "term" for boiling leftover soup from the night before.


The person who gave the nod of approval for this banner ate too much "noddles" and couldn't stop his head from nodding.


Can someone stick a poster to cover up this crappy LTA sign?

Ros blogged this at 3:04 PM 0 comments

Bye Bye To The King Of Pop
Friday, June 26, 2009
Saw a friend posted the following comment on Facebook "Micheal Jackson Is Dead!!", I thought it was some king of joke or hoax. So being curious I did some googling and to my dismay it's actually true. Though his life has always been surrounded by allegations and accusations, his ever changing face (due to cosmetic surgery) his music has been a hit for quite long. I think his the next big thing to Elvis. MJ passed away at age 50 from cardiac arrest. Still so young and he had a world tour scheduled next month too. Gone too soon....

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Michael Jackson, `King of Pop,' dead at 50

LOS ANGELES – Michael Jackson, the "King of Pop" who once moonwalked above the music world, died Thursday as he prepared for a comeback bid to vanquish nightmare years of sexual scandal and financial calamity. He was 50.

Jackson died at UCLA Medical Center after being stricken at his rented home in Holmby Hills. Paramedics tried to resuscitate him at his home for nearly three-quarters of an hour, then rushed him to the hospital, where doctors continued to work on him.

"It is believed he suffered cardiac arrest in his home. However, the cause of his death is unknown until results of the autopsy are known," his brother Jermaine said. Police said they were investigating, standard procedure in high-profile cases.

Jackson's death brought a tragic end to a long, bizarre, sometimes farcical decline from his peak in the 1980s, when he was popular music's premier all-around performer, a uniter of black and white music who shattered the race barrier on MTV, dominated the charts and dazzled even more on stage.

His 1982 album "Thriller" — which included the blockbuster hits "Beat It," "Billie Jean" and "Thriller" — is the best-selling album of all time, with an estimated 50 million copies sold worldwide.

At the time of his death, Jackson was rehearsing hard for what was to be his greatest comeback: He was scheduled for an unprecedented 50 shows at a London arena, with the first set for July 13.

As word of his death spread, MTV switched its programming to play videos from Jackson's heyday. Radio stations began playing marathons of his hits. Hundreds of people gathered outside the hospital. In New York's Times Square, a low groan went up in the crowd when a screen flashed that Jackson had died, and people began relaying the news to friends by cell phone.

"No joke. King of Pop is no more. Wow," Michael Harris, 36, of New York City, read from a text message a friend had sent him. "It's like when Kennedy was assassinated. I will always remember being in Times Square when Michael Jackson died."

The public first knew him as a boy in the late 1960s, when he was the precocious, spinning lead singer of the Jackson 5, the singing group he formed with his four older brothers out of Gary, Ind. Among their No. 1 hits were "I Want You Back," "ABC" and "I'll Be There."

He was perhaps the most exciting performer of his generation, known for his backward-gliding moonwalk, his feverish, crotch-grabbing dance moves and his high-pitched singing, punctuated with squeals and titters. His single sequined glove, tight, military-style jacket and aviator sunglasses were trademarks, as was his ever-changing, surgically altered appearance.

"For Michael to be taken away from us so suddenly at such a young age, I just don't have the words," said Quincy Jones, who produced "Thriller." "He was the consummate entertainer and his contributions and legacy will be felt upon the world forever. I've lost my little brother today, and part of my soul has gone with him."

Jackson ranked alongside Elvis Presley and the Beatles as the biggest pop sensations of all time. He united two of music's biggest names when he was briefly married to Presley's daughter, Lisa Marie, and Jackson's death immediately evoked comparisons to that of Presley himself, who died at age 42 in 1977.

As years went by, Jackson became an increasingly freakish figure — a middle-aged man-child weirdly out of touch with grown-up life. His skin became lighter, his nose narrower, and he spoke in a breathy, girlish voice. He often wore a germ mask while traveling, kept a pet chimpanzee named Bubbles as one of his closest companions, and surrounded himself with children at his Neverland ranch, a storybook playland filled with toys, rides and animals. The tabloids dubbed him "Wacko Jacko."

"It seemed to me that his internal essence was at war with the norms of the world. It's as if he was trying to defy gravity," said Michael Levine, a Hollywood publicist who represented Jackson in the early 1990s. He called Jackson a "disciple of P.T. Barnum" and said the star appeared fragile at the time but was "much more cunning and shrewd about the industry than anyone knew."

Jackson caused a furor in 2002 when he playfully dangled his infant son, Prince Michael II, over a hotel balcony in Berlin while a throng of fans watched from below.

In 2005, he was cleared of charges he molested a 13-year-old cancer survivor at Neverland in 2003. He had been accused of plying the boy with alcohol and groping him, and of engaging in strange and inappropriate behavior with other children.

The case followed years of rumors about Jackson and young boys. In a TV documentary, he acknowledged sharing his bed with children, a practice he described as sweet and not at all sexual.

Despite the acquittal, the lurid allegations that came out in court took a fearsome toll on his career and image, and he fell into serious financial trouble.

Michael Joseph Jackson was born Aug. 29, 1958, in Gary. He was 4 years old when he began singing with his brothers — Marlon, Jermaine, Jackie and Tito — in the Jackson 5. After his early success with bubblegum soul, he struck out on his own, generating innovative, explosive, unstoppable music.

The album "Thriller" alone mixed the dark, serpentine bass and drums and synthesizer approach of "Billie Jean," the grinding Eddie Van Halen solo on "Beat It," and the hiccups and falsettos on "Wanna Be Startin' Somethin'."

The peak may have come in 1983, when Motown celebrated its 25th anniversary with an all-star televised concert and Jackson moonwalked off with the show, joining his brothers for a medley of old hits and then leaving them behind with a pointing, crouching, high-kicking, splay-footed, crotch-grabbing run through "Billie Jean."

The audience stood and roared. Jackson raised his fist.

By then he had cemented his place in pop culture. He got the plum Scarecrow role in the 1978 movie musical "The Wiz," a pop-R&B version of "The Wizard of Oz," that starred Diana Ross as Dorothy.

During production of a 1984 Pepsi commercial, Jackson's scalp sustains burns when an explosion sets his hair on fire.

He had strong follow-up albums with 1987's "Bad" and 1991's "Dangerous," but his career began to collapse in 1993 after he was accused of molesting a boy who often stayed at his home. The singer denied any wrongdoing, reached a settlement with the boy's family, reported to be $20 million, and criminal charges were never filed.

Jackson's expressed anger over the allegations on the 1995 album "HIStory," which sold more than 2.4 million copies, but by then, the popularity of Jackson's music was clearly waning, even as public fascination with his increasingly erratic behavior was growing.

Jackson married Lisa Marie Presley in 1994, and they divorced in 1996. Later that year, Jackson married Deborah Rowe, a former nurse for his dermatologist. They had two children together: Michael Joseph Jackson Jr., known as Prince Michael, and Paris Michael Katherine Jackson. Rowe filed for divorce in 1999.

Cardiac arrest is an abnormal heart rhythm that stops the heart from pumping blood to the body. It can occur after a heart attack or be caused by other heart problems.

Billboard magazine editorial director Bill Werde said Jackson's star power was unmatched. "The world just lost the biggest pop star in history, no matter how you cut it," Werde said. "He's literally the king of pop."

Jackson's 13 No. 1 one hits on the Billboard charts put him behind only Presley, the Beatles and Mariah Carey, Werde said.

"He was on the eve of potentially redeeming his career a little bit," he said. "People might have started to think of him again in a different light."

- By LYNN ELBER, Associated Press Writer
Source: Yahoo! News
Ros blogged this at 9:57 AM 0 comments

Kawaii~!!!
Thursday, June 25, 2009
Bought some really cute toothbrush holders last weekend when I went NTUC. Quite cheap! A dollar each and they are so cute and with so many designs to choose from.

So cute!!!! (>^_^)>~~

Ros blogged this at 10:39 AM 0 comments

Double Chocolate Chip Muffins
Monday, June 15, 2009
Went to grandma house on Saturday for the monthly family dinner gathering and my birthday cake was delicious! It's a chocolate classico cake from Four Leaves bakery. Check it out. Drools~


Me and my cousin share the same birth month so we celebrated it together. ^_^

Skipped one session of run training at East Coast with the guys and made double chocolate chip muffins on Sunday. Wish I had bought more chocolate chips to add into the muffin though. =(


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Double Chocolate Chip Muffins (Makes about 30 muffins)

120g Cooking chocolate
280g Self-raising flour
2 Tablespoons of cocoa powder
1 tsp Baking powder
150g Brown sugar
230ml Milk
60g Melted butter
2 Eggs (beaten)
1 tsp of Vanilla essence
150g Chocolate chips (Add more if you like chocolate chips)

1. Preheat the oven to 180C.
2. Melt cooking chocolate in a bowl over simmering water.
3. Sift the self raising flour, cocoa powder and baking powder into a bowl
4. In another bowl, mix the melted chocolate, brown sugar, milk, melted butter, chocolate chips, eggs and vanilla essence together.
5. Fold in the flour mixture. Do not overmix.
6. Fill the half of the muffin tins with the mixture.
7. Bake for 20 minutes.
8. Leave in tins for a few minutes before transferring to a wire tray to cool.
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I also made a big batch of double chocolate chip cookies for bebe's colleagues cause they simply love them and requested for more. Bebe told me to take a break from baking for a month. His abit sick of eating so much chocolate stuff during these few weeks. For the whole of Sunday, the entire house smelt of chocolate from the double chocolate chip cake and double chocolate chip cookies! Ha ha! XD

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Ros blogged this at 3:58 PM 0 comments

Banana Nut Muffins
Friday, June 12, 2009
Made banana nut muffins on Wednesday night. Pretty easy. Just dump everything together, mix and bake. They looked pretty brown cause I used brown and white sugar instead of solely white sugar. =P


I did them while gaming online. Ha ha! Anyway here's the recipe I used:

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Banana Nut Muffins (Makes around 20 muffins)

4 - 5 Bananas, mashed (the more bananas the more moist it is, so I used 5)
50g Castor sugar
100g Brown sugar
1 Egg, slightly beaten
1 tsp Vanilla essence
50g Melted butter
1 tsp Baking soda
1 tsp Baking powder
170g Plain flour
50g Chopped walnuts

1. Pre-heat oven to 180C.
2. Mix the mashed banana, sugar, egg, vanilla essence, walnuts and butter together. Set aside.
3. In a separate bowl, mix together baking soda, baking powder, salt and flour.
4. Mix wet and dry ingredients all together. Do not over-stir as it will cause the muffin to have a rubbery texture instead of a soft and moist texture that you want to achieve.
5. Pour into lined muffin tins, and bake for approximately 20 minutes or until cooked.
6. Transfer to wire rack for cooling.

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Ros blogged this at 12:07 PM 0 comments