Testing... Testing...

Currently testing a new blogging tool, so you might see some strange stuff here...

Like the font may suddenly change in type, and become totally different from the one I was using.

It may change in size,

or suddenly become bold, italic, underlined, or striked.

I may even decide to experiment with different colours.


My words may even do the hokey pokey

They'll go to the left

And they'll go to the right

And then to the left

And then to the right

But at least you know

I will always maintain my center of balance ^_^

So we'll see how this goes.

And if this tool works,

You bet I'll blog about it.

While I was blogging/surfing/reading sites, I realised that my emptied cup of Milo had attracted a small family tree of ants.... ewwww.... Note to self: Put cup in sink before blogging next time...

Anyway, I know I just blogged earlier this morning with the news, but I saw this paragraph on Krystal's blog which looked interesting, and here it is:

If you read this, if your eyes are passing over this right now, even if we don't speak often, please post a comment with a memory of you and me. It can be anything you want, either good or bad. I promise not to come after you with a sharpened pencil either way. N pls leave ur name or initials at least so I know who =P

When you're finished, post this little paragraph on your own blog and be surprised (or mortified) about what people remember about you.


Hm. I'm curious as to what you people could possibly say, since I have no memories of either getting so drunk I puke on some guy's pants, or dancing on bartops or stripping for strange men...... But follow the instructions anyway and let's see what rose-tinted [or blackened] memories you people have of me... :)

The News as read by Aki

At this moment in time, I am pleased to inform you that this blog post is coming from the comfort of my living room. Hence, you may all deduce, correctly, that my father has finally managed to configure the wireless network in the house. Doomo Arigatou Gozaimashita again to my long-suffering dad, and may the megabytes never fail. *bows deeply*

In other news, my second reading of Harry Potter: The Goblet of Fire has finally ended. Hence, I consider myself all ready for the movie on Sunday, and ready to blast down claims of "I think the movie is better because..."

I'm a literary purist at heart. NOTHING BEATS THE BOOK, YOU HEAR ME???

However, *hrmph*, I shall nonetheless watch the movie and offer my unsolicited opinion on this blog once I've done so.

Also, a serious accident almost happened last night during Swing Fling, though thankfully no one was seriously injured. The accident occurred while said assailant, Jules, was attempting to perform an inside turn with his partner, namely moi, and raised his elbow at the wrong spot, thereby causing it to collide most painfully with my right ear. ^_^!

As I said, no one was injured. Well, the blows I gave him in revenge certainly weren't enough to injure him seriously anyway.

In the blogosphere, as if I hadn't enough of blogging, I've started a new one to comment on the stuff I see online. Bleah. This one is really more of a trial thing, but check it out if you will.

In announcements, The Slayer returns to our shores for the summer. [the Aussie summer, anyway] boredslacker would like to be the first to bid you welcome back, and hope that the people and the heat doesn't kill you this time round.

That's all for the news this morning. Please stay tuned for more broadcasts. Arigatou for reading and Sayonara!

Postsecrets

A cookie: This is interesting. The premise of the blog is that you create a piece of artwork about your secrets, send it to them and they post it on their blog. The intention is apparently to collect enough pieces to create a book one day.

You might have to scroll down quite a bit to see all the artwork, but some of it is pretty interesting and thought provoking.

Some I liked:







Check it out, mate

Make Money Through Blogging

Blogging is getting more and more popular, so why not make money through your blog?

Ok, you can stop laughing now. Obviously I'm not getting anywhere like that with this blog. ^_^! But there are others out there who are trying out the same thing, with varying degrees of success.

One of the most recent examples I've heard of is Subnixus: From a 9-5 job to Blogging full time

I know this is what Xiaxue aspires to do, but is it entirely possible? These people would have you believe it is.

But their methods differ. While Xiaxue aims to earn revenue through advertising, Subnixus aims to earn revenue through adclicks and eyeballs.

Of the 2, I'd feel that Subnixus is the more successful. His website claims that he earns about $50 a day through adclicks on his site alone. [so tell me, why are we all still working?] if you browse on Xiaxue's site, you'd see that she has only one advertiser, namely Localbrand.

I guess part of the problem is her notoriety. Note the previous fracas when she wrote about using disabled toilets. The next thing you know, her 2 sponsors withdrew their sponsorship. Granted that they had only given her a 3 month contract, but would they have extended it if not for the hoo-ha over the disabled toilets? We would never know...

But a point can be made here about reputation and revenue. She should have known from the example of Kate Moss' snorting that notoriety is not always good for business in that way, and that some businesses can quickly pull away their custom if they think that your antics [or your words] can have negative effects on their reputation as well.

I suppose in that way, Subnixus' method seems more sound. He earns revenue through adclicks and offers good advice about blogging on his site. [check it out man] Hence, he is not overly dependent on a few sponsors for his revenue, and can easily make it up through other means.

Anyone tempted yet? I sure am... hahaha

Another group of people are the ones who sell things through their blogs. One example I am keeping an eye on is the Ampulets blog. This artistic duo maintains a blog, which they use to sell artwork and merchandise. The blogger software makes it easy for them to organize their website without having to resort to HTML, but their model is not that much different from the dozens of other websites out there which sell stuff. Another example is jun gifts, which was sent to me by Necroz, and which sells Japanese-themed gifts.

So is it possible? Could you? Hm, I should explore this option a little more... hehehhe....

Update: The previous rant is about how I couldn't get the wireless network to work for nuts. This update is to announce that after dinnertime, my dad had a second go at the thing, and now it works, and I'm now blogging this from Lappy. Doomo Arigatou Gozaimashita to my dad from the bottom of my bloggy little heart.

IBM Laptops are super antisocial

From the previous fracas of my old laptop comes another disaster with the new one. ^_^!

Because right now only one PC in the entire household can be connected to the Internet at any one time, my dad has been trying to set up a network so that all of us can be connected at once. This is particularly crucial for me and bro, cos we're the most frequent users of the Internet and also, the ones who fight most over the usage of the PC.

So I bought a wireless router and a couple of wireless network cards from the NTU co-op and thought that was all to go.

Me thought sooper wrong.

The router worked fine with the PC itself, but when it came to my laptop, it resolutely refused to communicate with it, no matter the amount of cajoling and threatening we did to them. [the router and the laptop] The worse part is that whenever I switched on Lapy, I could see that a wireless connection could be sensed, but when I tried to go into the Internet, nothing could be reached!!!

With a sinking feeling, I realised this was the exact situation I faced with the old one in my hall room.................

Then one day, I came home and dad told me that he had managed to get the thing working, but for it to work, I had to use a LAN cable to connect to the router. Nabeh, then I buy a wireless router for what somemore?

But one connection better than nothing. So we connected everything, switched on Lapy...

Only to find that the connection didn't work, now that I was in the room. Cue another hour or so of cursing and dad clicking intently away at the laptop.......

*string of bad expletives* Why the af does this always happen to me and IBM laptops??? Had I known this would've happened, I shld've just plopped my money on a sweet little Mac instead......

Then again, who's to say that the Mac wouldn't have given me the same problems? *Heavy sigh*

So we're back to sharing a PC for the Internet till my dad can figure out what the heck is wrong with this connection. Shinde......

A really busy Sunday

I was out with him almost the whole day and after lunch, this is what we did:

World Cyber Games

2 words: Boys' Playground. The place was packed with guys staring intently at video and computer screens while battle raged in cyberspace.

Conversely, the chairs around were filled with bored and tired parents, who had probably been badgered by their sons into bringing them here. ^_^

We walked around the place a bit, but there weren't really much exciting battles going on at the time. In fact, most of the gamers there seemed to be amateur gamers who were just taking advantage of the free gaming computers. [according to him, they were amateurs anyway. To me who can't play for nuts... ok they seemed pretty decent]

Too bad we missed the grand final match. Oh well, onto the...

Let's talk about... Sexpo

Quite a disappointment, really. Even the DF found it mild by his standards, and that's saying a lot. ^_^!

When we went in, there was a slightly 'cleaner' family section outside, and the more 'adult' stuff was in another area which had been walled off from the rest of the public, and guarded by pseudo policemen who were really security guards. [whacha gonna do if a minor really tried to run in? Pin him down and arrest him?]

And the first thing we saw when we went in was 3 guys trying to blow up condoms in a given timespan. ^_^!!!! [actually, my thought was I never knew condoms could be expanded to the size of monster jackfruits, but I digress...]

The whole thing was just really mild to the point of boring. Besides the little stage with the condom-blowers and pole-dancing girls, there was just some ancient Chinese sexual artifacts and a bunch of stalls around selling sexual items. The artifacts were of some interest, but were mainly erotic paintings. There were though, these little ornamental fruits. You opened them up, and they revealed a little porcelain couple in a sexual position. Apparently, mothers included those in their daughters' wedding presents to prepare them for marriage. How that worked, i don't know, cos I didn't see instructions included....

Anyway, it seems our ancestors weren't exactly that pure either. There was a hell of a lot of stuff going on beneath the covers [literally and figuratively] but all were hidden beneath a veneer of respectability. Like on first glance, the fan which had a normal painting of a warrior on one side, and an erotic painting on the other side. The person using that fan must have fanned himself pretty hard, I must say........

Of the stalls, the largest [and most crowded one] there was from Condomania, stocking a huge variety of vibrators on the walls, from the [do penises really come in that size??] large to the tiny ones you could put in your purse. But really, most of the stuff there could be bought in their brick and mortar shops too, so what was the point? [quite ex also]

In fact, the DF got quite bored along the way, and wanted to go shopping at the other halls. I was wondering whether I should be worried, that my BF seemed to be more interested in shopping than sex, [!!] till we walked nearer to the entrance, and we saw that the condom blowing guys had been replaced by a young nubile thing gyrating on the pole.

"Now it's getting more interesting!" He said, before I steered him firmly to the exit at the other side of the hall.

Note: actually it might've been more interesting if we had Jules and Candle with us. The 2 of them came in after we had started shopping, and according to Candle, Jules kept up a very..... lively commentary of the items in the show. Which was actually one of the reasons why I was hesitant to go with him, but well... :p Maybe next time I should start a podcast with the things he says... hahaha...

Edit: I found some photos on the web. Click here to see some.

A Twist of Fate

The musical I watched with Candle and Mega after the Sexpo was much more entertaining. In the style of a classic whodunnit, the whole thing centered around a peranakan household in 1937. The death of the family patriarch sparks off a fit of soul searching and secret baring amongst the household, as their sordid secrets come out one by one till the real murderer was revealed.

The music, composed by Dick Lee, was cute, though not quite memorable. But what really stole the show were the actors, and not even the award-winning actress who was in it. No, for me, the most entertaining actors were the family matriarch, [a formidable, kebaya-wearing woman full of hairpins in her bun] and the family servant, Ah Si. Good god, the matriarch was really peranakan to the core, the way she flicked her wrist and spoke to the others, and at certain times, she even reminded me of my great grandmother.

The family servant Ah Si was most endearing, in his star-crossed love with the daughter of the matriarch. But he was most cute when he started singing about how he hated the matriarch, and how it made him want to kill.... chickens. *pwak* It's really one of those things you had to see. :p

All in all, a busy Sunday for me.....