Let's Have a Discussion!

Everyone knows PostSecret right? I like reading stuff there. But it only gets updated weekly. I do understand why, but it would be nice if it got updated more frequently. And nicer still is access to older entries.

Recently, I discovered Livejournal Secret. It's pretty good too. And it gets updated daily and older entries are accessible. I do have another thought about this though. I don't know, but having the site updated that frequently and having nearly all the secrets posted somehow "cheapens" it for me. I went through some of it and it somehow feels less profound that PostSecret.

I realize I'm contradicting myself here. There is no complaint here though, just mouthing off as usual. Both sites are good.

In other happenings, Gubra is opening in theatres next week! I'm very excited. I've read some reviews and I can't wait to watch this. Yasmin is awesome. Unlike many movie makers in this country, Yasmin tells it like it is. Her films are realistic and relatable, like the old P. Ramlee movies. Political correctness is secondary to her.

I've been adding and removing links from the blogroll again. Some new blogs there. Check it out.

There is a very good entry in one of those blogs. The answer to the apparently age old question of the nice guy vs the bad guy. Or to be precise, what makes a so-called "bad" boy/girl more successful in getting women/men.

Sitting here in the office right now, it seems quite obvious you know? People, not just women, are attracted to confidence. It's just too bad that "jerks" and "bitches" have it in abundance and people like it enough to tolerate the other unfortunately negative traits that they have.

Everytime I read or hear something like this, I go,"Now why didn't I find this out any sooner?" Anyway, here is the question. Thinking rationally about this, it is very logical and obviously true. Confidence is extremely important. So how come so many people don't realise it?

Yes, I've written about this countless times before. But face it, relationship dynamics make fun posts don't they.

So, I hear someone ask, how does one develop a healthy (as opposed to inflated) confidence level and self esteem? Can it be developed? Or is it innate? I have no idea at all. This is one question that so far, I have not been able to answer adequately. (Or maybe someone already told me the answer and I just forgot/didn't notice it). Does anyone know for sure?

Knowing how would help so many people, I'm pretty sure of that.

Talking about questions, there is a bit in the post that I mentioned that goes something like this:-

Women are always testing the limits. Don’t ask us why. But that’s what we do sometimes. We know that it is wrong, or it might cross the line, but yet we try our luck. And when we DO get our way, we get that momentary triumph, but as time goes by, we begin to lose respect for the man who gives in to us ALL the time. We might not even notice it, but as the relationship moves along, we might start to realize that we are getting bolder and bolder in putting down the man.

For the record, I've seen this kind of "pushing the envelope" behaviour in BOTH men and women. What I want to know is why? Wouldn't life be A LOT easier if people didn't do any of this?

Anyone got any answers?

Animecha

Before anything else, I read some great posts earlier this evening. The first one is about unrealistic expectations of some high scoring graduates and this one about personal responsibility.

Both of them excellent posts. I've often wanted to write about both these things but I always seem to get distracted by something else. Anyway, my sentiments are similar to the posts respective authors, hence the linkage.

Go now and read.

I've completed downloading Robotech! All 85 episodes. I'm watching the Mospeada part of it right now. I never finished watching it the first time it aired when I was 13 (I think). Actually, since Robotech and Mospeada have slightly different storylines, I still haven't finished watching it.

There is going to be a Robotech sequel called Shadow Chronicles. Unlike the other parts of Robotech, it isn't a Macross rip-off. I hope to see it as soon as I can. Apparently, it's going to be big and will open with a feature length pilot. The teaser trailer is already out.

Cool. I'm looking forward to watching that. I hope it doesn't go the way of all the other Robotech sequels and end up being scrapped.

Also, I've discovered from the Robotech website that Harmony Gold (the owners of the Robotech brand in the US) is in the process of redubbing the original Macross into English. That's awesome!

The original Macross feels "darker" than Robotech. Some parts of Robotech feel a little too "kiddie" and sanitized for me. Which is too bad because the rest of it rocks. I believe the correct term to describe this is bowdlerization?

Talking about mecha anime, last night Rin and I watched three decades (80s, 90s, 2000s) worth of Japanese super robot anime intros given to me by Jerome. It was quite interesting. And mind numbing at the same time. And quite possibly seizure inducing for some people. A lot of the 80s stuff looked very, very familiar but I couldn't really remember them. I was too young to remember some of them I guess.

Super robot anime. Don't you just love'em? Suddenly, I wonder if there's anyway I can find old episodes of Voltron. The vehicle one, not the lions. I love that show.

And Saber Rider. I found a torrent file but it didn't work last night. Damn it.

Oh yes, last but not least, Fast and Furious III will be coming out soon! It is called Tokyo Drift. I'm watching that when it comes out for sure.

Babysitter

I've spent the last few days babysitting my humongous Robotech download. It's at 98% now. I can't wait!!

Apart from that, I've done nothing else. Except watched some DVDs and reinstalling old games.

Speaking of DVDs, Saw 2 was so much better than I expected. It is good! It stars Donnie Wahlberg, who is very good. The ending as usual, is very, very, surprising. I love the idea of a serial "killer" that in fact, doesn't kill anyone. I hope there's a sequel.

There's not much to write about. Haven't been reading blogs or the news. Will probably write more tomorrow. Am reinstalling Mechcommander 2.

Oubliette

"Darkness imprisoning me
All that i see
Absolute horror
I cannot live
I cannot die
Trapped in myself
Body my holding cell"

- One - Metallica,...and Justice For All

Mortality. Difficult to comprehend. Especially our own.

I've been wondering this week. Is euthanasia legal in Malaysia? What part of the law governs such things?

I was reading last week when I encountered an article about Terry Schiavo. Remember her? Remember the controversy?

I'm not going to talk about what happened to her. I can't say what happened to her was morally right or not. It depends entirely on an individual's beliefs.

What really got me thinking was the tussle between her parents and her husband about who had the right to decide on her fate. Very sad. Very difficult.

I wonder, would it help if she had left a will of some kind, stating her desires if she was in a non-recoverable coma? What would she have wanted?

This got me thinking about what would I want if it was me.

And so, I would like to explicitly state here that IF I was ever in a persistent vegetative state for whatever reason, God forbid, and I had NO chance of recovery AND euthanasia is an option, I would rather be euthanised then be kept "alive".

I wish this because if I don't consider it "living" if I were on life support, had no awareness of my surroundings and had no chance of recovery.

Also, I believe that a human being has a soul. Therefore, it is possible that the soul is trapped in the body if the person is in a persistent vegetative state.

In that case, I would like very much for my soul to be released. Personally, I don't think this is morally incorrect.

This is my wish if anything like this ever happened to me. Hmm, maybe I should think about preparing a will stating this.

This is probably the most morbid thought I've had in a long time and most definitely the most morbid post I've ever written.

And on that note, have a nice weekend.

A "Fun" Filled Day

I'm downloading Robotech!! All 85 episodes of it!!!! That's 14Gbs worth of video files. This is my biggest download yet. I've done 7 gbs so far, I should be done by early next week.

I was lounging about at Wisma Saberkas just now, waiting for a friend to show up so we can buy new stuff for his PC (monitor, graphics card etc) when I noticed Silent Hill 4. Now I'll find out just how frightening it really is.

Other than that, I've just had a fun filled day driving back and forth between the courthouse and the Traffic Police compound office. There's a slight problem with my road tax renewal.

Apparently, I was blacklisted.

I'm very surprised to find out that I have two outstanding summons. From 1999. All that time and I only find out now.

Anyway, one was a run of the mill speeding compound which I unsurprisingly don't remember about. The other one was a road tax thing which I do remember about. I had to go to court and everything. It was settled then without any compound, i.e it wasn't my fault.

The surprising thing was apparently the case status never got updated and even more surprising, when I went to get the case status just now, the case officially doesn't exist! It's not on record.

So after much head scratching from the Lower Court staff, I got a letter and that was that. Unfortunately, now it will take two days for JPJ (that's our DMV) computers to update. Which means that I can only renew the road tax on the the very day my current one expires.

Ahh, dealing with the law and the civil service. What fun.

Despite the hassle of driving back and forth (the two offices are on opposite sides of town), I can't complain about the service. The police desk jockeys and the staff at the courthouse didn't give me a hard time and didn't make me wait much.

I thought I'd mention that since most of the time, people write negative things about the civil service. This time, they did a good job. So, well done civil service.

It's been quite a long day and I'm tired. There's a more serious thing I want to write about, but I'll do that tomorrow.

I can hear The Cat meowing loudly outside my door...

Snippets

Today is one of those days when, although I feel like starting a very serious post about very important issues and all that, I just can't.

On some days, I do enjoy writing a "serious" post (as opposed to the Dear Diary type of post). I find it quite the challenge. I think it's good mental exercise.

Some other days, it makes me sick. So much bad news nowadays. I wonder, of all the news articles and blog posts published daily across the world regardless of media type, how much of it is bad news? What's the percentage? I think the answer to this question would make an interesting discussion.

I don't know the answer, by the way. Probably more that 50%. I'm pretty sure.

Anway..

There are new blogs in my roll. One is written by a teenaged Saudi girl. One of these days, I will try to break down all the bloggers on roll and separate them by country. Most of them are Malaysians, nearly all of them in fact. On second thought, it's probably not necessary to do a break down.

Hmm, I need to do something about that, my blog roll is not cosmopolitan enough.

Fans of military aviation are no doubt aware that the venerable F-14 Tomcat is in the process of being retired this year. I've written about this before I think. I found this post about the last Tomcat fly-in to Oceana NAS. I'm very sad. Granted, those cats are very, very old already, but in my opinion, they still kick ass.

As a kid, I found Tomcats very exciting. Even now, I love them still. I think Top Gun is cool because of the Tomcat, not because of Tom Cruise.

Fans of Macross/Robotech anime would appreciate the look of the Cat.

They will be replaced by the F/A-18E/F SuperHornets. Nice planes in their own right. I'm pleased that the RMAF has them in inventory. But still, not quite as "cool" as the Cat.

I suddenly want to write about the Kfir and Mirage III jet fighters, but this would make this post very long.

Next time. Maybe next post even.

In other news, I'm finding Empire At War to be a lot more difficult than anticipated. I'm actually getting my ass kicked playing the thing on "Easy". It'll be a while before I get used to it.

Imperial forces are quite powerful and the sight of Imperial Star Destroyers scare me quite a bit. I like that.

Ooh, I almost forgot. I was reading Wiki articles and it seems very likely that our family dog is a West Highland White Terrier. The temperament section of the article and the accompanying photo sounds and looks like him.

If he is really a Westie, that will make him the first purebreed animal we have ever owned. I wonder where my mom got him from...

Finally, I need to remember to apply for leave next Sunday. This Sunday, I'm working in the place of someone.

And my road tax and car insurance expires next week.

Dog Stories

In my last post, I wrote about wanting to write about something else. This post, I will pick up where I left off before I got distracted.

The subject matter is much lighter.

Rin and I were talking one night and we talked about our pets, again. Ahh, pets, this topic comes up very often.

Anyway, I recalled an old story I read about a dog whose loyalty was such that when his master died, he lingered at the cemetery and continued to visit until he himself died nearly a decade later. It was very touching. Unfortunately, I just couldn't remember where I heard that story from.

Later on, it turns out that the story of the loyal terrier is actually quite famous. The dog was called Greyfriars Bobby. The story is very touching, especially because my own dog looks a little like Bobby.

Another good dog story is about Hachiko.

An especially dramatic story would be the tales of Balto and Togo, a pair of huskies who took part in the Great Race of Mercy serum run in Alaska in 1925. I think it'll make a good movie. Plus, huskies are awesome. I would love to own one.

I remember a few years back, I saw two husky pups on sale at a pet store in KL, male and female. They were awesome. Unfortunately, there was a sign that said the two must be bought as a pair and the pair cost a cool 10 grand. Not that I'm very surprised by that price. After all, huskies are awesome.

I love how they resemble wolves. Brilliant. I've always liked prick eared dogs more than the floppy eared varieties anyway.

But even if I had that kind of money, I wouldn't buy huskies even though I would like to. That's because they need lots of room and my surburban house doesn't have much of a compound. Which is too bad.

Talking about huskies, they're the one reason why I'd like to watch Eight Below. It'll probably be corny as hell being a Disney movie and all, but provided the dogs get a lot of screen time, I can tolerate that. I hope.

Haven't found the DVDs yet.

And finally, another good dog story.

I read that in 1997, a plaque commemorating fallen cosmonauts was unveiled at the Institute for Aviation and Space Medicine in Moscow. Among others, the plaque includes an image of Laika, the Sputnik 2 space dog.

The story of Laika is very sad. At least she is remembered.

I do like dogs quite a bit.

In other news, I recently watched Waiting. It was very good. And Vanessa Lengies is unbelievably hot! The real draw however comes in the shape of Ryan Reynolds and Anna Faris. I love these two, especially Reynolds. He's just insanely brilliant.

Another good one is Munich. Obviously, it's banned here due to its political incorrectness. I was watching it last night but it turned out to be longer than expected so I had to stop halfway because it was getting late and I needed wake up early.

I'll write more when I finish it.

Seeing Red

I was going to write about something else entirely, but I encountered something else today while I was reading articles on the net.

I'm going to talk about bullying.

This is nothing new. Read the papers and a story about some kid getting pummelled will surface every now and then. Sometimes it gets bad enough, particularly if the victim lands in hospital or God-forbid, is killed.

And of course, we'll get our usual knee-jerk reactions from everyone and etc and so on and so forth. Sometimes, something good does happen, like when the Sultan of Pahang got pissed enough to go to a prestigious boarding school to confront the school staff and the bullies themselves. NST carried a transcript of part of that confrontation and I am not ashamed to admit that I was so pleased to see the bullies and the school staff that tried to poo-poo the situation shit in their pants trying to explain themselves to the Sultan.

God, I would've paid money to watch that.

Before I go on, I would like to say that this topic is always very difficult for me to write about. I find it extremely difficult to write and think rationally when it comes to schoolyard bullying. I am a peacable, non-confrontational person who doesn't lose his temper easily EXCEPT when I think about bullying. It's a good thing I don't work in the Education Department. It's a good thing it's not up to me to deal with bullies. If it were, I would recommend summary executions, torture, the use of gibbets, impalement, public lashings etc.

See, not being rational there. And I feel that I don't need to in this case.

You see, I was a victim. I was picked on in school. For years and years. But that's quite obvious by now isn't it?

Anyway, I would like to share a really good website about bullying that I discovered. And not only bullying in school, but in general, including bullying in the work place. Please visit BullyOnLine. I've been reading it for a while and it's great.

Particularly interesting are sections on bullying myths and the List of Bullycide cases. The List has names of children who have committed suicide, attempted suicide or have been killed by bullies. I thought I'd mention that fact just in case people still think that schoolyard bullying is no big deal.

In truth, in this country, a lot of people still think of it as a small matter. On the surface, it looks like it's just an occasional thing.

Yes it is. Occasionally, kids who get bullied get permanent injuries. Or die. That happens occasionally.

How about the kids that are being murdered slowly during every school day?

Oh come on, people say. I mean it's normal, right? It's a right of passage, people say. It'll be over when the kids grow up, people say. I mean some kids grow up just fine, even after getting bullied.

Some. For the other "some", it never ends. They never recover totally. They can't be "normal" and just shrug it off. Sometimes, the scars are permanent and obvious.

Since this is my blog, I feel that it's not inappropriate to use myself as an example.

There's two things about me that I might want to describe as being "abnormal" First, I suffered from chronic depression and had severely low self-esteem. Especially when I was younger. I'm a lot better now, but I'm not exactly the carefree extrovert that I'd want to be. Unlike say, my brothers for instance.

There are probably many contributing factors but I blame part of this on constant bullying while I was in primary and lower secondary school.

Now, it's a known fact that getting picked on is bad for a child's self-esteem. Especially if the child gets no help. There's the name calling. And the taunting. And no need to mention the pranks, the set ups, the practical jokes. I tell you, the sound of your entire class laughing at you stays with you forever man. And this happened more than once.

Can't be good for a child's self-worth. The more people involved, the worse it is. I tell you, there were a lot of people involved. In fact, I can see their faces right now. And one of the bastards owe me a hundred bucks. I hope he's dead.

Secondly, I have a thing against authority figures. Doesn't matter who. Parents, teachers, bosses at work, politicians, cops, etc.

My feelings for authority figures range from mild suspicion to disdain to outright hostility and hatred (r.e. my boss at my former job in UNIMAS)

Why is that?

Well, I think that in some ways I blame authority figures for not "helping" me when I needed them. I blame them even more when I remember those times my teachers accused me of being a crybaby, or openly supported a bully even though they knew what was going on. There are more incidences of this "betrayal" by authority figures, like times when some teachers at school hinted that maybe it was me and not the other kids who picked on me that was in the wrong, that somehow I "incited" or encouraged the bullying. Especially if the bullying student is a teacher's pet.

Well, if being short, stuttery and bespectacled can be considered as incitement, I guess it was my fault then.

While I try to understand that they probably meant no malice at the time, it's hard to forgive things like that.

Therefore, until today, I still have the hardest time believing that people in positions of power have the interest of other people in mind when discharging their duties. I know they are good people out there, I've met them. But still, I have this nagging cynical feeling in the back of my head that most people who end up in high places and have authority are going to use their advantage to screw everyone over. That somehow, people who are supposed to help you won't help you, especially when it's "inconvenient".

Maybe I'm being silly and paranoid here. But there you go, that's the truth.

So, bullying is a bigger deal than people make it out to be.

Personally, I don't think people take bullying seriously enough. Schools are still more obsessed with public exams records and inter-school sports meets. Many schools still care more about the school's rep than student welfare. That's the root of another problem, that's why some bullying cases get covered up.

If anyone remember some of the news articles about bully victims here, they'd also remember accounts of school staff scrambling to cover it up and to keep things quiet.

So much for our caring society eh?

In the worse case scenario, what can the bully victim do? What happens when there is NO ONE who is willing to help?

I can think of two ways to handle this.

One, the papers. If someone is getting bullied and the school does absolutely nothing, get the papers involved. Or better yet, TV. And police. Better yet, all of them. If a school does nothing or if the school wants to keep it hush hush, it's their reputation that they are worried about.

If this happens and since the school doesn't care about the bully victim, why should he/she care about the school's reputation? Put it to the sword. Word will get out, and someone will do something for sure. Probably someone very high up.

Two, retaliation. While it's generally politically incorrect to advocate violent retribution, sometimes there's no other option, you know?

It's dangerous and can get you in trouble, but sometimes, you have no other choice. And choosing to put up with being beaten down all the time isn't a very good choice.

If you are getting bullied and there is no other way out, fight back. Screw consequences. Whatever happens next, at least you did something. But remember, fighting back should be the Final Solution. Last resort.

Sometimes when I think about it, I wish I did fight back. It might not have solved any problems, but at least I would've made a stand.

Anyway, that is my story today. Bullying isn't just child's play. It's more serious than that. In fact, by definition...

... bullying is terrorism. Nothing less.

Take it seriously.

PS. One more important read, the profile of the serial bully. Sound like anyone you know?

Men and Women

The time has come yet again to do the Great Culling of the Blogroll. My blogroll is getting very bulky and some need to go. Some of them I don't really read anymore while some others are no longer active. Which is a shame. I don't like to see a blog die like that.

What can you do, it happens.

If I'm not too lazy, I might edit my links list too. I no longer go to some of those links and I have new ones that I do go to.

I might do these while I'm off work next week. Might.

Anyway, there's things in the paper that I've noticed lately that are thought provoking. Like this article from NST. And this one, which is a rebuttal of sorts.

Basically, a survey was conducted among 200 female professionals who are between 25 and 40 and their attitudes towards marriage. According to the survey, 80% of them prefer to marry after 30 or not at all.

Firstly, this might be alarming to some people, but I'm not surprised at all. Anyway, who has the right to decided on being married other than the person themself right? So there's no problem here.

Some might bring up the biological clock issue. On this, it's hard for me to say since I don't really need to worry about that. If this was considered, the question becomes what is more important, marrying because of want or because of necessity?

I've never agreed on people marrying because they are pushed into it or because of a perceived need. Things can go horribly, horribly wrong with these kinds of marriages. Having said that, marriages out of want can also end badly. But at least, the responsibility will lie in the two people involved, not with their parents or their families or peers or whatever.

I don't agree with people marrying because "it was about time". But I'm no expert here and if it works for some people, more power to them. It might work, who knows? I wouldn't know.

A regular reader would notice that I've written about this before and my opinions haven't changed.

But this isn't about that actually. It's about something else.

To anyone took the time to read both those articles that I linked to above, notice the rather confrontational statements in both articles.

I've been reading a lot about that recently. Men and women, blaming each other for their problems with relationships. There's blog posts out there where women say ALL men are scum and cannot be trusted and only after one thing and bla bla bla. And vice versa, ALL women are vapid and opportunistic and superficial and bla bla bla.

Generalising is bad but anyone who even exerts a tiny effort in thinking will know that, so no need to talk about it anymore.

What I will mention is what I smell when I see this kind of battle-of-the-sexes style confrontation and mud slinging. I could be wrong, but the whole thing smells like one huge big pile of misunderstanding.

That's the problem. And this problem is there because men and women don't talk to each other enough. Too many rules and too many social constructs prevent this. But that is such a long story, I'm not going to even try to discuss it.

But it's true isn't it?

Many men can't understand women because they don't have many female friends, or their female friends are very formal with them and thus, not very open to frank discussions. And vice versa, many women don't understand men because they don't have good male friends, or their male friends act "prim" and "proper" around them thus also not being very forthcoming.

How are we ever going to understand each other if we don't talk to each other, don't see each other as equals, never ask each other why this and why that. Or even if we do have friends who are the opposite gender, can we be straight with them? Be honest and frank? Be bold and up front and ask,"Why do guys/girls do [insert thing here]? and actually listen to the answer?

Ask yourself this question. Have you ever had an opinion or heard a "fact" about the opposite sex from your own group friends that later proved be untrue?

Odds are, you have. Oh, girls are materialistic, oh girls are soft and like flowers and romantic stuff, oh girls cannot do manly stuff because they are too [insert stereotype here], oh girls are like this and like that and etc etc.

Obviously, these things are not true for all women right? If I didn't hang out with women, I wouldn't know that, or would have found out the hard way.

And likewise for men, there are many "facts" about men that are in fact, not factual at all.

I'm not saying that I know women well, not at all. But at least I know that if I have a question about girls, I'd ask a girl friend instead of speculating with my possibly equally clueless guy friends. Chances are, I would get better feedback from women about other women.

So that's what I'm saying.

If men and women talked to each more and talk more openly, it'll save men and women a whole lot of heartache and frustration. They would know that even though they both want to be in a good relationship, they would also realize that they both look for slightly different things in that relationship.

Both man and woman would realize that while they are both different from each other, they are both not as different as they think they are.

Both man and woman would begin to see each other as people, not as different creatures from different worlds and not as oppressors or vultures or accessories or ornaments or toys or pieces of meat.

And perhaps, with better understanding of each other, both man and woman would know what they really want from each other and why they do what they do.

And perhaps, when that happens, they would eventually find each other.

If only it were that straightforward in real life eh?

About Games Again

Oh gosh, how time flies in general. How time flies more when GTA is involved. And how long have I not updated.

There's not a lot to write about, except about gaming.

Life is still kind of uneventful and quiet.

Anyway, my second helping of GTA is cheat-free and a lot better than the first time I played it. I think I might be able to finish the game again by next week.

And talking about games, one time me and my friends were talking about old games that we love, like X-Wing series of games and UFO:Enemy Unknown and the like when it suddenly hit me.

People remake old movies all the time right? Why not remake old games?

Like the X-Wing ones for example. Take all the missions from the old X-Wing and Tie Fighter games, throw in some new ones, include Episode 1,2 and 3 ships and scenarios, use a new graphics and physics egine and put everything in one super mega X-Wing compilation.

It would sell for sure. Definitely.

There are a lot of old games that were brilliant. So brilliant, the only updates they need to keep up with the times is to use a new graphics engine and some tweaking. That's it.

I notice that a lot of games nowadays concentrate more on eye candy and all those tech bells and whistles instead of story and content. Example, Gunship 2000 was absolutely brilliant when it came out. The dynamic campaign games were genius, and you had your own crew to take care of as well as squad mates. You can even give out promotions and medals to your AI wingmen. The game was involved and had a real "feel" about it.

The sequel was prettier with better graphics and new stuff. It also sucked. No wingmen, no campaign, no story, no nothing. Just some random missions. It felt more like a technology demo than a game.

X-COM also had a sequel. Prettier, but not even close to the original X-COM when it came to addictiveness and involvement. Also, buggy as hell.

There are more examples which I can't think off right now.

I think remade old games with new technology would rock!

Also, I've discovered that there is an online version of Uncharted Waters!! Unfortunately, it's not in English.

Yet.

Heee heee heee. I can't wait!

About Blogging

I'm feeling very chatty suddenly.

I've been meaning to say this for months now, but everytime I launch the "Create new post" window I always seem to forget.

It's about blogs, Kuching-ite blogs in particular. I started blogging nearly two years ago. Back then, not too many people have heard about blogging, especially here in Kuching. Over the last year, I suddenly noticed this explosion of blogs coming from all over the Internet, all by people here in Kuching.

This is great. Awesome even. That's the beauty of blog hopping, you get to "meet" new people without getting out of your room. And so many new Kuching bloggers. Sometimes nowadays, I'd be driving around or doing something in town when I would notice other people in cars or buses or just walking around on the street or queing up to buy movie ticks at Star Cineplex and I wonder,"Hmm, I wonder if he/she has a blog?"

And not to mention blogs by other people from countries all over the world. I find the most interesting are the ones from countries that aren't usually very well known, like say, Faroe Islands or Estonia or Burundi or El Salvador or Bhutan etc.

Just now, I went looking around for blogs from Brazil. Didn't find anything yet.

Anyway, while niche blogs are always interesting, I find the most interesting ones are the ones that most pundits would consider mundane, i.e the personal blogs. They're interesting because these blogs are about the blogger him/herself and about their daily life. It's an eye opener to read about daily life in another country.

It's cool to see that we can be so different and yet be so similar at the same time.

Anyway, day to day stuff is sometimes easier to read than the news. Which is usually bad.

Oh yes, there's another virtue of blogging. It teaches people how to disagree. From blogging, you will eventually see that just because something is different doesn't mean it has to be "wrong".

I can say that before I started this blogging business, that is usually the case. I like something or have an opinion on something. Someone else doesn't like that something or has a different opinion. At the time, it was simple. I don't agree. They're wrong.

These days, I'd like to think that I'm more open about such things. I might not agree. It's not necessarily wrong. Just different. It's fine. I might counter with an opinion or two myself to explain my position, but these days I can do that without feeling much malice.

There are many blogs on my blog roll and more in the bookmarks in my PCs at home and at work. Obviously, many times, I don't agree with some of the posts in these blogs. Imagine how exhausting it would get if I were to rebutt everything I don't agree with? I admit, when I first started, I actually took the trouble to leave comments and write posts expressing my contrary opinion. Not that it's a bad thing to do so, but sometimes I admit I didn't have much tact when doing so.

Yes, I can be severely opinionated sometimes. It's a flaw.

These days to me, some things are worth debating about but it seems that most things can be left as they are, different as they may be. The difference doesn't have to mean much.

All this I got from blogs. So go ahead and blog away, gentle reader. There are many fruits to reap from blogging and reading blogs.

Then there is that thing where I notice some bloggers are beginning to make it appear that blogging is now a competitive event. How blogs are supposed to have some "standard" or formula or a well defined niche before it can be consider a "proper" blog. Even worse is when I read that some people insist that the only real "blogs" are those news and politics pundit ones and all the rest are written by trendwhores.

That's codswallop. Poppycock (which apparently is a brand of a popcorn-like product as I just recently found out).

See, this kind of elitism is exactly the thing that will ruin blogging for everyone.

My opinion? Blogging and blogs are whatever the blogger wants them to be. A photo album. A diary. A personal soapbox. A fansite. A place to put up links to whatever. All of the above. None of the above. And so on and so forth.

It doesn't have to be about traffic or fame or following guidelines and formats. It can be anything. In my humble opinion , that's the beauty of blogs. That diversity of function and purpose is what makes it so great.

Of course, there are "rules". Like the blogger must be accountable for what he/she writes. It's no good to write something and deny it later if they get called out because of it, for example. But this is common sense, not hard and fast "rules".

The point? Just because someone's blog is reasonably "successful" (and what constitutes a "successful" blog is yet another one of those things that can be argued about until the cows come home) doesn't give them the right to impose a certain "standard" and proclaim that other bloggers are doing it "wrong"

I've actually read some blogs that make claims like that. That may be their opinion, but in my opinion, that kind of opinion is flawed and kind of bigoted. That kind of elitism doesn't do anyone any favours. It pisses everyone else off and it makes the elitist party look like a prat.

And that is the end of that. Blogging is a beautiful thing and as usual, I encourage everyone to at least try it once. It's great, yo.

In other news, I was looking through my hit counter and as usual, keywords are the best thing about hit counters.

Let's see what on this week's charts.

As usual SDHider is still a hot search. Lots of people out there are having trouble playing Need for Speed Most Wanted I see. The link to download that is in my archives somewhere. Or they could try looking on Torrentspy. You're welcome.

Another usual one is Need for Speed related stuff like cracks and torrent files. That's easy people, go to Torrentspy. They have lots of stuff. Better hurry up before they close shop. I hear they have a lawsuit on their hands now.

There a search for Mimy Indra. I'd give you her email address, but then I'd have to go into hiding when she finds out and hires assasins to take me out.

Someone was looking for references to the mechanics of gatling guns. A very good search since gatling weapons are awesome.

One more keyword that's quite common over the last week is "uphamol". Hmm.

At least there's no "girls on ladders" this time.

Have a nice weekend.

Back From Break

I've been away. Last week, my colleague asked me,"where are you going for your break?"

Nowhere. That's right. I just stayed at home.

While not quite as exciting as traipsing about in a foreign country, I really did have a nice time away from the office. The real break comes from the fact that not only did I not have anything work related to do, I also stayed away from reading the news and blogrolling. I cut myself off from the rest of the world, you might say.

I started work this evening and I feel very rested. I really needed that 5 day break.

While on the subject of being isolated from news of current events, I bought fuel a few days back and I didn't realise that the fuel price had gone up by 18.5%. That was surprising, and yet not surprising at the same time.

Of course, this means things will get more expensive. Especially food. Which is not good since I eat out a lot. Thankfully, I drive a car with a smallish engine (1.3 litres) so it's still not so bad. I just need to watch my rpm more closely now. It's the average rpm and not your average speed that has a bigger effect on fuel usage. I drive a manual, so I can control the rpm. Which is nice.

And talking about my car, the new white BRM 15" wheels look really nice. I could've pick the dark grey one, but I think white goes better with red. I might post a picture. Next, I might also spray paint the brake drums and calipers. It helps prevent rusting. Haven't decided when to do this yet.

I'm going to get air faces too. Air faces are those plastic wind deflector things that you attach to the sides of your car windows, for those who don't know what it is.

Tinkering with car. That was how I spent my long break.

This blog is quite a good reflection of my life. It's kind of quiet and I only update a few times a week. Life's been like that too. Not much happening.

I must try harder and think of more things to write about.

The latest newish thing I did was to test the Hot Coffee mod in GTA: San Andreas. Old stuff but I haven't gone around to trying it until last night. It's...... interesting. I might go back to playing GTA again actually.

Look at that, it's March already. Perhaps things well be dramatically more interesting in March?

Actually, I don't think so.