Zestful One

LifeCode Anti-Aging Review

Posted by IcedNyior on May 17, 2010  |  No Comments

A few bloggers were selected to join Miu of PlusizeKitten for the Venus 0.8 Project on LifeCode Anti-Aging International Berhad. The people at LifeCode specifically opened the area for us on a weekend to accommodate us.

The lobby is a comfortable sitting area with lots of seats and little tables. This leads to the treatment rooms and also the spa area. Life Code has a spa under the same company called The Asia Spa, which is an award winning spa.

Top left picture is the ingredients used in the spa treatments – ground ginger and the like. The special function of this spa is that each room has a pair of beds and a private toilet and bathtub. Yes, individual toilets.

After the tour, we were asked to put our items into a locker before going for the Miracle ST (Super Tourmaline) House Rejuvenation Therapy room. The ST House has electromagnetic gemstones embedded in the wooden benches, the ceramic floor, the multilayer ceiling cabinet and the bamboo walls.

The black panels in the photos are ceramic balls that are embedded with electromagnetic gemstones. If you have backache, its perfect to lean against those balls to sooth your back. The room also has a essential herbal mist coming out of the holes at the side and also a quantum skin activator at the top corners.

The treatment lasts 30 minutes and we started to sweat. These are the toxins coming out of the body so we had to wipe it off constantly. We were also required to drink at least 4 glasses of the provided active micro-dew beads purified water.

After the treatment, surprisingly it didn’t feel sticky at all. In fact it felt rather refreshing even though we cannot take a shower in the next two hours. After towelling down and changing, it was the makeup and skincare session.

Chris our friendly trainer demonstrated with the Life Code Instant Face Lift Gel. The gel is water based and super absorbent. With just a few strokes and giving it 3 minutes to fade into the skin, there’s a significant decrease in sagginess of the face and also wrinkles.

(Photos of makeup by pinkylicious) Makeup by Life Code is designed to repair skin as well as make yourself beautiful. The eye shadow contains natural extracted anti-aging Hyaluronic Acid that can lift up and firm eye bags.It also refines fine lines around the eye and eliminates deep wrinkles.

The lip glosses are my favourite. The gloss is blended with natural organic skin firming ingredients and herbal extract, it plumps up your lips instantly and fills in all the wrinkles. I mean seriously my lips look plumper.

After the makeup and skincare session, we proceeded to Rasa Sayang downstairs for some Malaysian food.The private room we were in was decorated almost like a balinese style. The food was vegetarian briyani which was quite nice.

All in all, it was a nice experience at Life Code and I really want to thank them and Tammy for this opportunity. Are you interested to try? The ST House treatment costs RM150 per session but if you mentioned that you read this blog, you can get your first session FREE. Just contact Life Code service line 03-2289 0888 between 10:00am – 7:00pm Monday to Saturday (non-public holidays). Enjoy!

Disclaimer: All my reviews are written based on my unbiased review.
To see the full disclaimer, please read this.
Photos are all by Miu unless stated

Movie Review : A Nightmare on Elm Street 2010

Posted by IcedNyior on May 13, 2010  |  No Comments

One…two…Freddy’s coming for you…

I’ve always thought that kids had the creepiest voice, especially when they do that sing-song tone over and over again. Or laugh in a creepy way. Well you are going to hear a lot of that in this movie.

First and foremost, I must admit that I have never watched the first (original) version of this movie. Yea, I’m serious. My parents didn’t believe in letting their children watch horror/thriller movies. I’ve also not watched Edward Scissorhands…but that’s a review for another day.

Thanks Advertlets for tickets to the pre-screening
& Diese of BaYnN.com for her photo of the tix

Okay, back to Freddy:

This story tells of a group of teenagers who all have the same recurring dream. Its about a man whose face is disfigured, wearing a red striped sweater, a tattered fedora and instead of fingers, he has long, sharp blades on one hand.

These teens dream that he is trying to murder them in their dreams, and more often than not, the dream becomes a reality and they end up dead in the exact same way they were dreaming about.

As one by one of the teens unexplainably turn up dead, the other surviving teams band together to try and find out the the answers to their questions while trying hard not to fall asleep. Who is this Freddy? Why is he killing them?

As they dig deeper and deeper, they realize that all of them share a dark hidden past, kept secret by their beloved parents. And everytime they close their eyes, Freddy gets closer and closer.

The film stars Jackie Earle Haley (Ros as Freddy Krueger and Rooney Mara plays Nancy Holbrook, loosely based on the character Nancy Thompson in the original movie. I noticed that Katie Cassidy who acted in the TV series ‘Harper’s Island’ also had a role as one of the teens.

The beginning of the movie was a bit slow but it picked up towards the end, when the characters were getting desperate and chasing for time before their body could not handle it and started shutting down.

The music really lends the perfect environment for a horror movie. I thought the movie did have a few “sudden” moments. But personally, I didn’t think it was as scary as some Japanese, Indonesian or Thai horror movies I’ve watched. I must say the Asians does it better.

He looks more like The Mummy than a burn victim no?

Go watch the movie if you want to see how this remake compares to the first. Some parts of the story is different from the original. Think of it as a reimagining of the original, not the same story re-used. I think this movie better for the DVD collection.

Rating : 3/10

Review: Tune Hotels 1Borneo, Kota Kinabalu

Posted by IcedNyior on February 12, 2010  |  2 Comments

1Borneo is this shopping mall just outside the Kota Kinabalu town, around 5 mins drive from University Malaysia Sabah. Actually come to think of it, 1Borneo does feel a bit like Midvalley in terms of layout.

Anyway, Tune Hotels is one of the few hotels attached to 1Borneo – similar to Cititel Hotel and Midvalley in KL. The rates are from RM20 and up depending on the dates. I stayed there from 25th – 29th January. 1Borneo is a bit out of town but there’s a free shuttle bus from the other exit that stops in Warisan Square, right in the middle of town, near shopping malls like Centerpoint and all.

My room came with some amenities:

(a) Towel + soap + 1 sachet shower gel + 1 sachet shampoo = RM5 + RM10 refundable deposit

(b) 12-hour aircond credits = RM 13.49

The room consists of a double bed, two pillows, comforter, foldable table, KDK ceiling fan and power shower. Add-ons are TV, Wifi & Air Cond. Tune Hotels promises a 5 Star sleeping experience with a 1 star price. Here are some pictures of the room and shower :)

Craft Brews Brewhouse and Restaurant Party

Posted by IcedNyior on January 14, 2010  |  1 Comment

Left :“24 beers in a case, 24 hours a day. Coincidence? I think not.”
Right : Barley, hops, yeast and other ingredients used in beer brewing

At the end of last year, I received from Craft Brews for their Bloggers/January/Call-it-whatever-you-want party. For those of you who have not heard of Craft Brews, they opened mid December in Mutiara Damansara behind Proton and right next to Tesco & Petronas Station.

CRAFT BREWS is the new restaurant in town and it is anything but your regular beer and grub joint. This unique new outfit introduces the long-awaited brewhouse concept to Malaysia.

The non-halal restaurant comfortably seats 45 people indoors, and an additional 88 at the outdoor terrace for those who prefer to wine and dine al fresco. The extensive menu offers a variety of mouth-watering dishes, all designed to complement your pint of beer.

CRAFT BREWS will be serving four draft and 10 bottled beer selections where two coloured beers from the Singapore-based Reddot Brewhouse will be the restaurant’s signature, premium beers. This coloured duo – the Monster Green Lager and English Ale – will be served fresh on tap.

We were served dinner but I’ll talk more about that later. Then we had a beer tasting session. Apparently I actually know the guy who conducted it, Ben, who I met last Raya at Arai’s. I’m not a beer enthusiast so to speak (I prefer hard liquor myself) but it was interesting. Look at the pic above, the green ones is Monster Green Lager (light and one of my faves) and the reddish one is English Ale (pretty strong). Beer tasting is very similar to wine tasting. Swirl a small amount in a glass to aerate it a bit then look at the colour. Here are a few tips:

• To fully taste the flavour of the beer, you have to sip in some air as you sip in the beer. Try it! it seriously tastes different than just chugging it down.
• Beers that are light in colour are usually more hoppy tasting
• Beers can have other things added in them such as orange peel,or herbs. The green beer above, their famous “Green Monster” is brewed with spirulina (but there’s no yuckky spirulina taste, I can assure you)
• Salty and Sweet stuff compliments certain beers, depending on personal preference. Food in Craft Brews are specially prepared to compliment the beer they are serving

Honey Mustard Ribs, Tex-Mex Ribs, Homemade Potato Wedges & Eggplant “Chips”

I personally like the Honey Mustard Ribs with its sweet and slightly tangy sauce. The Tex-Mex is a bit spicy but nicely marinated in spices. Both ribs are big (in the pic u can see that its almost the diameter of the plate) and tender, fall off the bone. The Potato wedges are big and coated with batter. Very nice. The Eggplant “Chips” were anything but chips. This one had an Asian taste to it. Its like eggplant fried with small shrimp, onion and a bit of chilli.

Left (pic by spinzer) : Pretty beer towers all in a row.
Right : The other bloggers/twitter-ers that were there

Our goodie bag was really unique. Its a container with a Beer pass for 1 complimentary beer (1/2 pint) and ingredients to brew beer. From top left is Coriander, Orange Peel, Barley and Brewing Yeast (which I’m told is totally different from baking yeast). Interesting yes? I’ve yet to try it tho :P Has anyone else who went tried it yet?

Anyway, thank you Craft Brews for a night of food and drinks and great company :)

CRAFT BREWS is located at G3 Podium, Ground Floor, Menara Batu Kawan, No. 1, Jalan PJU 7/6, Mutiara Damansara, 47810 Petaling Jaya, Selangor. It is open daily from 12 noon till late and Happy Hours are 5pm-8pm daily. For reservations, please call 03-7722 3000. You can also catch em on Facebook (http://www.facebook.com/CraftBrews) and Twitter (http://www.twitter.com/CraftBrews).

** some pics from joshuaongys (read his post here) and nigelais

Movie Review : 2012 Exclusive Premiere (No spoilers)

Posted by IcedNyior on November 12, 2009  |  1 Comment

Centuries ago, the Mayans and other ancient civilizations predicts the year 2012 to be the destruction of the world.

Fast forward to current time: We see Jackson Curtis (John Cusack) struggling author, divorcee and part time limo-driver trying to spend time with his kids who mainly live with their mother and her plastic surgeon (focusing on boobs) boyfriend.

We also see a young Scientist Adrian Helmsley (Chiwetel Ejiofor) who, with his team has been predicting the destruction and trying to find a solution to work around it while preserving mankind.

That’s a quick summary I can make without giving too much spoilers.

My company had a corporate screening of the movie 2012 on Tuesday (10th Nov) – two days before the official premiere date on 12th November. We had an excess of tickets because some people didn’t turn up so I got to watch this movie in GSC Gold Class, albeit the first row.

Since the movie is coming out today in Malaysia, here’s my review:

I must applaud the awesome effects. In this movie you will see explosions, lava, volcanos forming out of flat land masses, massive clouds of smoke in the air. The earth opened up, splitting in many pieces and buildings collapsing into this gaping hole.

This movie is rated PG13 if I’m not mistaken so there isnt too much gore but you will still feel sad when you see the lives that are lost, falling off buildings, crushed by concrete, etc.

The storyline focuses on what man will do in times of desperation. Would you be selfish and think of yourself? Or would you be compassionate? Clearly it shows that in the face of destruction , prejudices like race, age, rank and finances are secondary.

The movie is a bit long, about two hours or so but in that span of time, i was entertained – laughing at the jokes "Pick up your big butt for me baby" and sad at the touching moments and feeling full of hope in humanity during one of the character’s speech.

The only thing I didnt like about this movie was how the hero , Jackson Curtis, was too good to be true – everything he did turned out exactly like expected. Also, being a doomsday movie, the ending was very predictable.

All in all, I’d give it a 6/7 over 10 Rating.

So what will you do if it was the end of days?

Stila Cosmetics Haul

Posted by IcedNyior on April 22, 2009  |  4 Comments

As many girls know, Stila closed its counters in Malaysia (and other international sites) preferring instead to sell in the US only.

The best part? They had a clearance sale of all their cosmetics and merchandise ranging from 50% – 70%! Awesome. This was a chance for me to finally pick up some stila makeup (because they are a bit out of my price range :().

Anyway, this was my haul

• Stila mug
• Get The Look palette (I think its Look #2, cant rmbr) – 3 eyeshadows in Lame, Oasis & Coin) + 1 Cheek color in Tint + 1 It Gloss Lip Shimmer in Enchanting
• Stila Step Out & Shine Holiday 2008 Collection – Silver Clutch with purple lining, Lip & Cheek Stain in Pomegranate, Stila Convertible Color in Orchid, Stila All Over Shimmer Luminize, Stila Multi-Effect Mascara Black, Montmartre Eyeshadow Quad Palette
• Stila Lip Glaze in.err i forgot, but its a brownish colour with speckles of glitter (I’ll update it later)

Total Damage : RM260 *sweat*

Yes, i know I spent a lot, but considering that the Lip Glaze is normally sold at rm90 was only RM45, I got tempted. Hehehe! Oh yea, i bumped into Miu at the Stila counter in Gardens

Now have to makan megi till end of the month (or write more posts)

[Review ] P1 W1Max Wiggy USB Modem

Posted by IcedNyior on April 10, 2009  |  6 Comments

Recap: I was invited to the Wiggy Preview for bloggers 2 days ago. I wrote about it and had a few pics here. However the modem was not working so I had to go back and replace it.

So, I went to P1 yesterday to replace my modem from Janice (because Naomi was at the media launch). It was encased in a black tin box which is styled in a similar way to the modem itself. I like the box. More photos at the bottom of this post.

I brought my laptop to P1 to test the modem as well because I don’t want to go all the way through the Federal jam if it was not working again. Upon plugging in the modem, it should prompt to ask if you want to install the drivers (or go to My Computer and find the P1 drive).

How to connect : Open up the dialer (it should be a black box with the word P1 in it on your desktop. The dialer its the purple box on the bottom right in the Speedtest screenshot below. It should start detecting the modem. Wait if it doesn’t. Try re-plugging in the modem.

Connecting : I notice that it usually takes a while for it to detect the modem and get connected as well. Even in P1 office I had to wait a bit. In some cases, I only got connected after exiting the dialer then taking out the modem then re-plugging it back in.

Above is the screenshot of my speedtest. This was in Bangsar Utama. The bottom right purple box is the dialer. Download – 0.99 Mb/s, Upload – 0.01 Mb/s, Ping – 153. I also ping’d google and got a few time outs but mostly it was okay.

Speeds : Surfing speeds were quite good. Youtube was not bad as well. One thing that I found was a bit weird is the downloading. I was trying to download something from rapidshare using IDM and I get fluctuating speeds. Something from 3kbs to 180Kbs. Its hard to say what’s the average download speed.

Conclusion : Based on my initial usage (so far) I’m quite satisfied with the speeds. Are you wiggy? ;)

Inside padding of the tin box

The modem itself

The old packaging

Pricing : According to saimatkong, this is the pricing for the modem

Monthly Subscription Fee (12 mths contract) = RM149 **
Fair Usage Threshold = 10 GB
Wiggy Portable Modem (1 yr warrenty) = RM299 (Upfront Payment)
Registration Fee = RM100 (Upfront Payment)
Activation Fee = RM60 (1st Bill)
E-Billing = Free (or RM5 for Paper Bill)

*Speeds are on Best Effort Basis
**RM200 Rebate on 1st Mth Bill (Limited Time Only)

[Movie Review] Watchmen

Posted by IcedNyior on March 10, 2009  |  11 Comments

I personally really like reading graphic novels. And the Hollywood trend now is to create movies based on graphic novels or games. Some have succeeded (like 300) but others have disappointed. Watchmen is based on a graphic novel by Alan Moore with the same title. It has 12 issues. I watched My friend brought me to watch this movie in GSC Midvalley last Sunday evening.

Watchmen is set at a time where masked superheroes were once revered and adored by the public. Newspaper articles, publicity and fame. Soon after, the people weren’t happy with the vigilantes, demanding that the police do their job. So most of the heroes retired and proceeded to live normal lives. However, when the Comedian is mysteriously murdered, the heroes are come out of hiding to find out what is threatening them.

The movie was captivating from the very start. The intro of the movie was shot like “still 3d images” where the people in the scene were “frozen”- I have no other way of explaining it, you have to watch it yourself. The intro really gives you a glimpse of the current setting – 1985s, where the US was threatened by the possibility of a nuclear attack from the Soviets, and superheroes hug up their masks. I like how they gave this background without any dialog or making the movie longer.

The story then continues with how the public was fascinated with the superheroes who remained in the public eye: Adrian Veidt – formerly the superhero Ozymandias, the smartest man on earth, turned businessman – and Dr Manhattan (formerly Dr John Osterman) who is blue and “can restructure subatomic particles at will, perceive happenings on the subatomic level, live forever, resize himself at will and teleport.”

Then one day, one of the heroes – the Comedian, a man who has strength and is good in combat – suddenly gets murdered. Rorschach – a masked vigilante who wears a sock with changing ink blots over his head – is determined to find out who was behind it. In the process, he also gets set up.

The thing I really liked about this movie was how they portrayed the watchmen as human. Not like some god-like being who are so different that us. They make mistakes, they cry and they feel remorse.

Anyway, I really don’t want to write anymore without giving away too much. Point is, I found this movie entertaining. If you are looking for an action packed flick filled with fighting scenes and not much dialog, this is not the movie for you. If you are looking for something that is deeper and interesting, do go watch it.

Rating : 4.5 of 5 stars

[Review] Sony Ericsson C905 – 8.1 Megapixel, GPS & Wifi

Posted by IcedNyior on March 1, 2009  |  10 Comments

Im writing this review mainly because some people have been requesting it. Sorry it took so long to write, I’ve been really busy (sorry dookster!).

I got my new phone some time ago. I was previously using the SE K800i Cyber Shot with 3.2 MP. Yes, I really do like Sony Ericsson Cybershot Phones. I like having an all in one device – phone, camera, organizer, music player – because its easier to bring around.

First the technical stuff. This phone is quite big – 104.0 x 49.0 x 18.0 mm to be exact. It weighs 136.0 grams and comes in Night Black, Ice Silver, Copper Gold and Tender Rose – tho I’ve only seen the black and White one here in Malaysia. It has a 240×320 pixel, 262144 color TFT QVGA screen. The screen is also scratch resistant. It supports GSM/GPRS/EDGE/HSDPA. The phone comes with a 2GB M2 card but officially supports M2 cards as big as 8GB.

The box set comes with the phone, a charger, a simple hands free (not the in ear one), a wrist lanyard, a Sandisk 2GB M2 card and a very nice USB M2 Adaptor. The phone itself comes wrapped with some protective plastic on the screen, the camera slider and the back cover. Sorry I don’t have the unboxing photos (forgot to take it).

Next, the camera. Its a 8.1 megapixel camera, which takes photos of roughly 3264×2448 pixels and 1.6MB in size. I like how the camera buttons are all located on the side so you can instantly activate the camera without having to unlock the phone. The lens is protected by a sliding mechanism of two metal plates.

The camera comes with a Photofix function – think of it like an inbuilt Levels adjuster (like in Photoshop). Photos can be corrected in terms of lighting and color. Photos will then look much better. Below is in example. Original photos is on the left and the Photofix-ed photo is on the right (click for bigger pics).

This is an example of a closeup shot. I wouldn’t really call it a macro shot. The tube is roughly 2.5 inches in length. You can see the that the colours are very bright and striking.

There are some things the phone doesn’t have. This doesn’t mean that its a flaw, it just means that these functions are missing. It doesn’t have a front facing camera – which seems to be one of the reasons why people don’t buy it. The phone is capable for making video calls but just no frontal camera (must like an overrated phone by Apple). It also doesn’t have a button for manual keypad lock so the only way to lock the keypad is to wait for the auto lock or slide the phone up and down.

The main question i get asked is, “Is the phone laggy/lagging?”. My answer is Sometimes it does lag. I’ve experienced lag in the contacts. Example when I type a sms and I want to open the contacts to look for the name, its a bit slow to load the list of contacts. Note that this is based on my personal experience. The lag seems to lessen after i updated my firmware via SEUS. But its not laggy to the point that its annoying.

Don’t really know what else to say about this phone. In short, I’m quite satisfied with this phone. When i got it before chinese new year, it was RM17xx. not too sure how much the price is now tho

My new beauty blog

Posted by IcedNyior on December 18, 2008  |  No Comments

I’ve started a new beauty blog some time ago with my sister. We haven’t really actively posted on it yet. But we’re going to write reviews on products – such as Acne Complex, shampoo, creams – that we’ve used. I think there’s not enough places to read reviews about products in Malaysia. Most of the websites I’ve seen in overseas which is not the same due to our asian skintype and environment.

My sister has oily, acne prone skin which is sensitive to some products while I have combination skin which can generally take most products. I think its a good mix :D

Speaking of acne, I was walking around in Ikano Shopping Center and saw that they have this center for skincare. Particularly for Murad Acne treatment or something. The facial was really cheap, perhaps I’d ask my sister to try it out and we can review it on our beauty blog. We’ll see