Phone Calls, Blogging, Engrish & Keiko

I noticed that the blogosphere is getting quieter lately. A lot of the blogs I go to aren't being updated quite as often as I would like them to be.

Yes. I am an insatiable blog addict. I need my hourly blog fixes. I'm telling you, it's worse than cigarrettes.

Yesterday, two very nice people called me on the phone. One was in the afternoon. I hope to be able to see her next week. She seemed like she had a lot to say.

Later at night while I was trying desperately to chase & shoot down Zeros in my very lame P40B Tomahawk in Pacific Fighters, another friend called me. She was bored.

Since I was kinda bored too, we talked for awhile. It just occured to me that I haven't had a marathon phone conversation in years. Before they invented the Internet, I spent a lot of time on the phone.

I used to have huge 4-5 hour conversations on the phone. Obviously since I was a school kid and therefore jobless and incomeless, my parents were less than thrilled when they got the phone bill. Anyway, talking on the phone was fun at the time. I could talk on and on. Apparently, I can no longer yak away on the phone like that. I've lost my phone enthusiasm with my advancing age. Nowadays, I just SMS.

Getting back on topic, my friend had some awfully nice things to say about my blogging. I was quite flattered. It's nice to occasionally get positive attention. As usual with anyone who talks about blogging with me, I tried to get her to do her own. She said she couldn't.

At first, I thought I couldn't do it either. But really, it's not that hard. Everyone's got stories to tell after all. Therefore non-bloggers, please go and try it. You might be surprised. I know I was.

I also wondered if any of my classmates and friends from my school days blog, or read blogs. Anyone born in 72, 73 & 74 reading right now ? If so, please leave a note. I'm curious. I would like to know.

In other news, I found this hilarious bit of Engrish from Macvaysia. Bad English rocks bebeh ! You like ? Want more ? Go and read and be increduled by the hilarity ! Ha ! Tootle me indeed...

And in some other news, I would like to mention something about car racing, which I quite enjoy watching.

There's many Asian drivers in Formula racing nowadays. Karthikeyan & Sato in F1 and many others in the other Formulas and events.

There's one more Asian (Japanese to be precise) driver whose progress I'm suddenly interested in. Keiko ! (No relation to that whale used in the Free Willy movies). Unfortunately, her website is in Japanese. Which is too bad because I noticed a section called Voices, which appears to be some kind of diary or journal.

You see, Keiko Ihara is remarkable because Keiko's a she. Since car racing is male dominated, it's quote remarkable for her to be involved. Even more unique is the fact that she's Japanese. And having won races in Japan before, she's pretty good too. So she's not in car racing for novelty's sake.

I admire women who do well in male dominated areas like car racing. In fact, car racing is one of the few sports where women can compete with men head to head, fair & square. It's a sport where gender is NO issue at all. It's cool like that, hence the presence of talented female drivers in events like F3, rallying and endurance racing (a la the Le Mans 24hour event).

For those who didn't know, female race car drivers are not rare. However, a female driver in F1 IS rare. And even more rare, an ASIAN female racer.

One day soon, I hope to see a female driver who gets a top team drive in F1. That would be the coolest. Perhaps that day will be as early as the next two years ? If Keiko can help it, it will be. Read this and this.

I wish her the best of luck and hopefully she'll get to test with an F1 team at the end of this season. Somehow, I think being a woman will make her more determined than Alex Yoong...