Weblog Wannabe

If I stopped using all the words listed in words that should be banned for life, I don't think I would have any English vocabulary left. But still it's an interesting (and sometimes amusing) read nonetheless. ♥

Tell Us Why Men Suck is a survey conducted to find out why men suck (what else?). You don't have to be a woman to participate, though I doubt that a man will admit that their own population sucks :P Come on, prove me wrong! ♥

I've been thinking up some new taglines for Weblog Wannabe and so far these are the ones that I've come up with:

"always a day ahead" (stolen from Brad)
"the weblog of tomorrow"
"come for the bad haikus, stay for the grammatical errors"
"trying hard to be politically correct"
"f-word free zone"
"bright enough to burn your eyes"
"home of the dog with the evil eye"
"where's the duck?"

Um, can't think of any more taglines. If you can think of any, do let me know :) ♥

Submit your lyrics to Song Factory and the kind folks at ZeroTV will turn it into a song that you can listen to online. Very cool! I've always wanted to write a song of my own, but every time I try and sit in front of the piano to compose the music, nothing comes to my head. I'm so untalented *sighs* ♥

Learn nothing at LearnNothing.com, "the only online CE course provider that uses rare typing monkeys for course development". How could you resist monkeys that type?

By the way, if you think a monkey hitting the keys on a typewriter randomly is able to produce a masterpiece like the works of Shakespeare, think again. ♥

Something that prol wrote reminded me of something that I've always wanted to say but always forgot: there are not many sadder things in the world than not to know someone that you used to know so well anymore because they have changed so much. ♥

I was looking for the origin of "more [something] than you can shake a stick at" (I really think that it's such an odd phrase) when I came across a site called the Origin of Phrases, which explains the origins of more phrases than you can shake a stick at, but there was no explanation on "more [something] than you can shake a stick at" there. Isn't it ironic? ;) ♥

Wanted Fonts is a really cool font site. You can preview a font by using the font sampler where you can enter a text and see how it looks once written in that font. There are thousands of fonts in plenty of categories there and you can download them all for free. (Link stolen from Strange Brew) ♥

Wednesday Morning Haiku

I am halfway there
Halfway to the nice weekend
Well, not sure 'bout nice

I put "nice" in the second line just to make it 7 syllables. If you asked me what my definition of nice is, I don't think I would be able to answer it. Bottom line is, if it doesn't suck, it's nice, even though nice is such a vague word. I prefer good to nice, though. Yes, I know that good and nice are not interchangable. Good has more quality to it than nice. A good guy is not necessarily a nice guy and vice versa. Still I prefer a good guy who is not nice to a nice guy who is not good. On a distantly related note, "Very nice design" is probably the highest compliment I could ever get from Nikolai, my design hero *grins* ♥

Some webloggers seem to have received the notification from SXSW, telling them that their site didn't make it as a finalist. I wonder when I'll receive mine.

In case you're wondering how much it'll cost me to come to SXSW in Austin, TX, here's the rough calculation:

Airfare (two-way): $600
Hotel (5 days): $500
SXSW Conference: $295
Food: $0 (I'll eat whatever I can bring from home)
Miscellaneous: $105
Total cost: $1,500

Amount of money in my bank account: $20

Forget Austin. ♥

When something went wrong and I know I could fix it, I just have to fix it. Yesterday I fixed the layout of Openlog because someone posted a very long word (well, actually it was just an A(*100)H(*75)!, if you feel like doing the math) so the entry part of the table overlap the pretty guy picture on the other part of the table. I so nicely separated the word into 2 parts and put a <br> in between. This morning I went there again and found that now all the entries were written in oversized font which made the entry table overlap the other table (again!), so I fixed it by deleting the <big> tag off the template. If tomorrow Openlog layout looks weird again, I swear I'm not going to fix it. Well, at least I'll try not to. I wish I wasn't so easily annoyed by things like that. Hell, it's not even my weblog, but I was annoyed nonetheless. I'm so hopeless. ♥

Some people spell it aluminium. Others spell it aluminum. But did you know that the correct way to spell it is actually aluminium? That's the spelling I've always used. I guess my English is not really as bad as I thought. I know at least one person who spells it aluminum (you know who you are). Well, guess what? You're wrong! Nah nah nah nah nah! Uh, sorry *grins* ♥

Whistler, which is supposed to be the codename for the next incarnation of Windows, looks very nice. Well, on a Mac anyway. ♥

The third language spoken in my office is Dutch, but no one actually speaks it apart from the (much) older staff. Yesterday at lunchtime, we overheard one of the older staff, gossiping about a new staff, saying, "tweien naar boven" (the two together upstairs) and a co-worker added, "tweien eiten naar boven" (the two eating together upstairs) and another co-worker added, "tweien eiten naar boven zonder betallen" (the two eating together upstairs without paying). Somehow it cracked me up. I'm so easily amused :) ♥

Tuesday Morning Haiku

I wish we would try
To agree to disagree
With no hard feelings

That would make the world a much better place to live in. But then again, I'm a utopist. I've always been one. My mother thinks that I'm one of those poor people who can only see things black and white. She always says that if I won't start trying to see the many shades of grey between black and white, I won't survive this cruel world. The thing is, life is so much simpler when things are classified only into black and white. I really should stop being such a pragmatist. As much as I believe that I won't live long, I have a strong will to survive. ♥

If you're a couch potato, you might want to test your knowledge on movie and TV sound clips by taking the Trivia Bytes Quiz. I don't watch much TV so I'm really hopeless at that. So hopeless that I didn't even bother to take the quiz *grins* But if I did, I think all I recognise would be the sound clips to educational shows for children such as Sesame Street, 3-2-1 Contact, and Square One. Those were the only shows I liked to watch before I got hooked on computers and the internet. ♥

Apparently, you can run a diesel-powered car on vegetable oil, or rather, used cooking grease. When you're running out of gas, er, I mean grease, you can always stop by at restaurants to fuel up on grease. And since it's used grease, you might get it for free! The restaurant people might look at you funny when you ask for grease to fuel up your car but I guess that's part of the risk. ♥

I think Blogger is playing up again. Sighs. Oh well... ♥

If you like Physics, you're going to enjoy reading The Physics Of... just about everything, from acoustic through to yo-yo, all written by high school students. There's even The Physics of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. No kidding. ♥

Whether you are a writer, editor, webmaster, entrepreneur, rock 'n roller, English professor, racehorse owner, overworked advertising copywriter, marketeer, Hollywood producer, deadline journalist, leery linguist, would-be Great American Novelist, penurious poet or future Nobel laureate, you're sure to find something at the WordLab to inspire or retire you. No, I didn't write that myself. I had a hard time describing it so I decided to just steal their words :P Thank God for cut-and-paste! ♥

I was going to elaborate but then thought that no one would read it anyway so here goes: *climbs on the soapbox*

The Bloggies is a popularity contest, but a weblog wouldn't have become popular if it didn't have good content or design or both. So the Bloggies finalists, generally-speaking, are the weblogs that have gained popularity due to their good contents or designs or both. The more popular a weblog, the more readers it has. The more readers a weblog has, the more votes it will get. The winners, most likely, will be the weblogs with the most readers. If there is something the Bloggies is going to proof, it will be that the winning weblogs are indeed the most popular weblogs in the WWW, and that doesn't necessarily mean a bad thing.

Among the few surprises on the list of the Bloggie finalists are that Kottke.org isn't among the finalists in the Weblog of the Year category, Fairvue Central isn't among the finalists in the Best-Designed Weblog category, and Haiku the Blog is among the finalists in the Best Weblog About Weblogs category (now tell me, who nominated it? ;). To say that there is no surprises in there is not true at all.

The Anti-Bloggies, taken into proportion, is just a harmless fun. I wouldn't mind being a winner in the Biggest Jerk Blog category. I'd just laugh it off and get on with my life. The only category in the Anti-Bloggies that I disagree about is the Most Depressing Blog. What if the writer is really depressed? What if "winning" the Most Depressing Blog category will only make him/her feel even more depressed and even drive him/her to suicide? It's funny that Dave should mention what happened to Ginkgo in what he refers to as "The Bloggies is Not Enough" when he has agreed to put the Most Depressing Blog category in the Anti-Bloggies. Am I the only one who sees the contradiction here? I've been through a depression myself. When you're clinically depressed, the last thing you need is a putdown.

Well, just my two cents. *bows* *steps down the soapbox* ♥

Mr. T heard from his fans that Yahoo! wouldn't list their websites. He decided to take action and pity the fool that was Yahoo! in Mr. T vs. Yahoo.com. Go, Mr. T! For some reasons, Yahoo! liked my sites. I got two websites listed there. I didn't submit my weblog to Yahoo! because I didn't want it to get listed. I told you I was weird. ♥

Monday Morning Haiku

I've heard about it
But never tried it before
Post from Newsblogger

Well, since Blogger won't let me sign in, I decided to try to sign in and post from Newsblogger. It seems to work. Anyway, I'm thinking of posting another of my take on the whole Weblog Awards thingy. I spent all day thinking about it yesterday. I read more about the views of both the pro- and contra-Bloggies and now I have a slightly different view. I hope I'll have time to write it this morning. If not, you're just going to have to wait until tonight :) ♥

Somebody send a question to Jocasta and Guido's Weblog Clinic, please? ♥

In the same spirit with PseudoDictionary is The Word Spy. It's devoted to recently coined words, existing words that have enjoyed a recent renaissance, and older words that are now being used in new ways. They don't seem to be open to reader's submissions, though. ♥

See George Washington and Abraham Lincoln exchange comments live online at George And Abe. They seem to be pretty up-to-date with today's situation. Find out why. ♥

What is your favourite food? Mine is Pempek Kapal Selam. Pempek is some kind of fish cake with chicken egg in the middle, eaten with sweet and sour vinegar sauce. Kapal Selam means submarine. Pempek Kapal Selam looks like a submarine (well, sort of). Yes, we Indonesians get to eat all sorts of weird sounding and tasting food. It's fun! Aren't you green with envy? ;) ♥

If you enjoy snail mail correspondence and origami, you're going to find Envelope and Letterfolding a godsend. It's an illustrated guide to folding envelope and letters. There are so many styles you can try. Even I was tempted to try some, but my laziness got the better of me, as usual :) ♥

Learn how to speak Hawaiian Slang (Pidgin) in jus tree minutes a day! Read the word, hear how it's pronounced, repeat it and voila! You'll speak Hawaiian like a native in no time at all! ♥

Symbols.com is an online encyclopedia that explains the meanings of Western signs and ideograms, from the ones found carved in mammoth teeth by Cro-Magnon men, to hobo signs and subway graffiti. It also explains the meaning all those cute little squiggles on the warning labels of your clothing items. ♥

SundayMorning Haiku

Silly lil' brother
Has tonnes of silly lil' fish
In silly lil' tank

It's silly because he and everyone in the house have to adjust our schedule for the fish's convenient! We have to feed it (with dried worms that look like KitKat) every 4 hours when he's not home, we may not turn off the light nor open the window in his room, sometimes he has to wake up at midnight just to put fresh water into the tank which can get so noisy that it wake the whole house up. The silly little fishy aren't even cute! They're pretty dull looking. I don't know what my bro sees in them, but rumour has it that when they've grown bigger, they can get pretty expensive. Oh whatever! Not that there's anyone out there who'd want to buy the silly little fish. ♥

What used to be here is gone. Well, sort of. I just needed to get it off my chest. Now moving along! ♥

The real Sean Connery may not be able to come to your party, but Sean Connery Lookalike might be available! Book early! Or so they say. ♥

Michael Horowitz has a lot of computer gripes and he posted them all at Computer Gripes. Pretty obvious, eh? ;) The gripes are not reviews of products. They focuse in showing you what's bad about some computer-related products. I found some of the gripes pretty amusing. And I think the guy needs to Bloggerify his site. ♥

[e]Bigmouth is a place where you can gossip, share secrets, confess your sins etc. to your heart's content anonymously or if you don't feel like it, you can just read other people's gossips, secrets and confessions. You'll need to register to enter. But really, who needs [e]Bigmouth when you can ramble about anything you want in your blog? ;) ♥

I've been trying to deny it but now I'll admit it: I've been in a bad mood ever since I woke up. Hence the mostly sarcastic posts I made today. There's a construction work across the street and the noise -- the intense noise of machinery running for hours non-stop -- is really driving me crazy. I so wish the machine would break and stop running. Grrrr!!! I couldn't even concentrate on the film. It's simply too noisy :( ♥

For the lack of things to say as well as to blog, I'm going to try to be like a typical weblogger and list the things I bought yesterday. I bought Sarah Brightman's "La Luna", which is a great album with a bunch of great songs, mainly about the moon (what else?). In that album, Sarah sings everything from classical to pop songs, such as "Hijo De La Luna", "Figlio Perduto", "Scarborough Fair", "Moonriver", "Whiter Shade of Pale" and "Here With Me". Yes, Dido's "Here With Me", but I think Sarah did a better job at singing it. She made it sound less flat.

I also bought a couple of VCD's: "High Fidelity" with John Cusack and "The Kid" with Bruce Willis. Both are comedy. I need my daily fix of laughter. I've been getting it quite a bit at work but I haven't laughed at all today, being home and all. No one's cared enough to make me laugh. It sucks. I think I'll just go offline and watch the films now. More later! ♥

Good news! Thanks to the kind folks at Pyra, Blogvoices is coming back in a few days. I don't think I'll use it again since, being a control freak, I like having the comments stored in my own server. But I might use the source code once it's released. I miss the email notification part of Blogvoices :) ♥

Useless observation: Nikolai removed the bitch from Kitschbitch but not the sluts from Linksluts in the Bloggies voting form. I wonder why ;) ♥

My competitors in the Best Asian Weblog category of the Bloggies have been very supportive! Thanks Dican, Danny and Dean! We Asians rock the world's socks! :) Still no word from my competitors in the Best New Weblog category. Hmmm. I guess blood is thicker than mud. Or something. ♥

I would beg for votes for my weblog in the Anti-Bloggies but I don't think my weblog belong to any of the categories there. Well, at least I don't think so. If you see a category that you think suit my weblog, feel free to vote! :) I love getting awards. I used to have plenty of them back in the good, old GeoCities days. ♥

Saturday Morning Haiku

'Flu and allergy
All became one. Together
To make my life hell

No, I'm not in a bad mood right now. I'm just sick of being ill. Anyway, I'm going to make today's blogging a Vote-Begging Special Edition of Weblog Wannabe. I don't want to have mixed feelings about the Bloggies anymore. I hate being undecided. I've decided that I want to win a Bloggie! No, scratch that. Two Bloggies. Since my weblog is already a finalist in two categories, I might just as well do my best to beg for votes to win. You nominated my weblog because you wanted it to win. Not campaigning for it would mean that I didn't appreciate your votes. I do. Very much. I'm flattered. So I'll do my best to win, just for you. I'll even prepare my victory speech, but that's another story altogether :P ♥

This site claims to have the world's largest collection of tongue twisters. It stores 1846 entries in 77 languages, including Indonesian and Javanese (one of the many Indonesian languages). I don't find the Indonesian and Javanese ones tongue-twisting at all. I think they're just fun-sounding. But for non-native Indonesian speakers, they might be very much tongue-twisting. Do you know of any tongue-twister not listed there? ♥

The little comment thingy looks so much nicer now. I'm quite happy about it. Go on, post a comment (or a quack) and tell me that I rock your sock. You know you want to ;) ♥

It looks like Weblogs.com has stopped noticing my updates ever since I converted to PHP-ism. Shame on you, Weblogs.com! *sniff!* ♥

Six-Clicks.com is the web version of six degrees of separation. Well, sort of. What it basically does is connecting one thing and another through six websites. I think it'll make an interesting weblogging concept. ♥

Jeffrey Zeldman has something interesting to say about awards in what used to be his awards page. ♥

How come no one (but John and myself) would try the new little comment thingy (a.k.a. "Quack?")? Come on, humour me. Leave a comment! Say anything! I know the thing looks ugly but, hey, I'm only a PHP newbie! I promise that it'll look much better by the end of the week. Until then, wish me luck with PHP or something. Please? ♥

In case you're interested in understanding spam emails, here's Spamfordian! = English, which is an abbreviated dictionary of Spamspeak. The kind of spam that I hate the most is the ones with "Here's the info you requested" in the subject line. They never fail to make me grit my teeth in anger. ♥

If you feel like you haven't had enough of chain letters already in your inbox, you can always get some more at the Chain Letters Central. This one called Prayer For Your Boyfriend really cracked me up. The misspelling is an added bonus. ♥

Friday Morning Haiku

Can hardly believe
That it's Friday already
How quickly time flies

Not that I mind. I didn't get to conquer PHP as planned because I was too tired and sleepy to do anything when I got back from the doctor's last night. Speaking of doctors, it's official. I'm allergic to MSG, so no more Chinese food for me. Waaah! I'm thinking of buying chicken satays for lunch. Yum! Anyway, Matt sent me a link to this PHP resource which, according to him, was an excellent resource for all things PHP (other than himself, of course :P) and found that PHP can do all sorts of cool things. I'll be sure to play around with it (and bug Matt) all weekend long :) ♥

Do you know of a PHP resource with instructions on how to embed HTML into PHP? I don't even know how to make a line break. I'm so pathetic. I thought it was \n, but it didn't work so it can't be it :( If you're a PHP wizard, HELP!!!

Nevermind. I'm going to conquer PHP by myself tonight. Mwahahaha! ♥

Now you can make your own spiffy comic, even if you can't draw to save your life. Make Your Own Captain Underpants Comic is fun for the whole family. Just enter a few names, drag and drop, pick the lines, and voila! ♥

Wanna see a picture of green pepper that resembles Elvis Presley? They claim that the photograph has not been retouched or altered in any way. I believe them. It does look very real! ♥

For some reasons, The Natural Life Cycle of Mailing Lists reminds me of MetaFilter. I know MeFi is not a mailing list, but still I think some of the points apply there. ♥

One thing that disappoints me about the Bloggies is that Fairvue Central didn't make it to the final round in Best-Designed Weblog category. Makes me wonder if Nikolai gave up his place to make way for Kottke :) Now don't get me wrong. I love Kottke.org's old, yellow zoom boxy design, but his current design is only half as cool as the old one. But maybe it's just me. I do have weird taste in things. ♥

Which one do you think is better: my daily crappy haiku or these Heavy Metal Love Haikus? ;) I like to think that mine is better because at least it isn't accompanied by any picture of any scary-looking heavy metal singer. ♥

Thursday Morning Haiku

Today is the day
I always wish was Friday
Can't wait to go home

Well, I didn't post a lot yesterday because I was working on the little comment thingy all night long. It doesn't look too pretty but that should do it for now. Also the comment count doesn't work even though it worked when I tried it from home last night. I must've screwed up the code somewhere when I was trying to make the layout look nicer in vain. Oh well, at least my dream to have a page in PHP has come true. Oh, and I got the code for the little comment thingy from here. I found the link to it at Ernie's. It was a godsend :) ♥

I also have mixed feelings about AOL's new True-to-Real-Life log in screens :) Not that I'm an AOL user. ♥

I think I started too many paragraphs with "So". ♥

Just like Rabi, I too have mixed feelings about the Bloggies. It is an unnecessary popularity contest since the results will only confirm that the popular weblogs are, well, popular. But I try just to think of it as something fun, which is the reason why I've been so busy begging for votes from the beginning. It's just a game and I love playing games. Games are supposed to be fun and not to be taken seriously.

So I've got not one but two weblogs in the final round. This weblog is a finalist in two categories. Haiku the Blog is in one. I'm not expecting any of them to win because as much as I love playing games, I simply suck at it. If you think my weblog deserves to win, go vote for it. If not, go vote for others that you think deserve it more. I'll live, really :) ♥

Wednesday Morning Haiku

A really nice dream
Has put me in a bad mood
It was just a dream.

So I was complaining to Nikolai about how people didn't write emails anymore these days before I went back to sleep. It was only 4 o'clock in the morning and I didn't have to wake up until 5. During that one hour sleep, I had a dream in which someone sent me a really nice email about my weblog which made me feel warm and fuzzy. The dream was so vivid that I thought it was real. Before I left home for work, I decided to re-read that email, just to put me in a good mood, but I couldn't find it. I even bothered to check the deleted email folder on my email client, but it was not there either. Only then did I realise that it was just a dream. How disappointing. ♥

BlogVoices has been shut down indefinitely, so there'll be no more Quack! for the time being. Thanks to Chris for providing such a great service, even if it was only for a relatively short time. BlogVoices will be missed. ♥

You probably know the English anagram for your name or your weblog's title already, but I'm sure you don't know the German anagram for it. Anagramm Generator in deutscher Sprache will generate the German anagrams for any text in any language. Just enter the text you want to be anagramised (is that a word?) in the first field of the form and then hit the "Generator starten!" button. Since my German is already very rusty, I have no idea what the anagrams mean. But still it was kind of fun. ♥

Unlike most other humour archive sites, Archive of Humour actually has some funny, original stuff that haven't been forwarded via email ten times around the world. Be sure not to miss the Stock Photo Police, the Signs of Apocalypse and the Sad Ads. They'll at least make you smile :) ♥

Follow the adventures of the Killer Ninja Stick Men From Pluto that come to our blue planet to teach the ways of Ninja Stickdom, available in comics and radio play. Very cute! :) ♥

According to an essay written by a Dr. Jack Hyles, despite the popular belief, Jesus had short hair. Um, okay. ♥

Whether you like eating sushi or not, you'll find Sushi 101, which is a guide to sushi on the Internet, pretty resourceful. I don't like sushi as I'm not so crazy about eating raw fish wrapped in vinegared rice (yuck!), but I enjoyed reading the sushi vocabulary, where I learned that "Anago o kudasai" means "please give me salt water eel" (a very useful phrase indeed), and the sushi etiquette, where I learned that the experienced sushi-eater will order assorted sashimi to give the sushi chef a chance to show off his best fish. I'll keep that in mind. Ok, so I don't eat sushi but if I had to choose between eating sushi and drinking beer, I'd much prefer eating sushi and if I had to eat sushi, I'd like to look like an experienced sushi-eater! ♥

And now it's vote begging time! :)

If you like, you can vote for Weblog Wannabe in the "Best Asian Weblog" and "Best New Weblog" categories, and also for Haiku the Blog in the "Best Weblog About Weblogs" category in the final round of the 2001 Bloggies. If you're a finalist and I know you, chances are, you already got my vote :) And no, I didn't vote for my own weblog(s). So there.

It was such a pleasant surprise to see Haiku the Blog as one of the finalists, considering that I've pretty much abandoned the site. I hope David will solicit votes for it as well *grins* David and I are co-founders of Haiku the Blog. Nikolai did the beautiful design. Haiku the Blog team, unite and vote! ♥

What is your favourite word? Do you like it because of the meaning, because it sounds funny or because it's fun to say? I don't think I have a favourite word, but I kind of like the word "wobbly". It's a fun word :) ♥

Tuesday Morning Haiku

Hooray, I can post!
I can show you the haiku
I'm not so proud of

All morning Blogger thought I was signing up for an account when I was actually signing in. I'm glad they've fixed the problem now. Anyway, I'm so sleepy. I only slept for 3 hours last night. I was editing the Random Firda images Joe created for me. Now if you refresh/reload or press F5, you'll see more variations of Random Firda (on top left corner). The jailbird one is my favourite. And no, I've never been in jail, in case you're wondering. I love the Prince Charming one too. And also the I Love Voicemail one. Joe is cool :) ♥

Tim just discovered Random Firda, and Rebecca went crazy with the draggable images. Reading about it makes me feel all warm and fuzzy :) The dog does make a perfect hat. Try moving it to my head and see it for yourself! ♥

I dedicate the following link to all those poor souls whose Monday has just begun: The Office Safe Games. Play games all day long at work and look busy! I was pretty productive at work today, though. Even my supervisor was impressed. I'm so glad my Monday is over! ♥

While we're on the subject of selling and buying, Who Would Buy That? is a weblog dedicated to all those wacky stuff sold in online auctions all over the web. It's Blogger powered too! ♥

Black Market Babies.com is "Your No. 1 Source on the Internet for buying living human children". You can even sell your baby if you want. Hey, I'm only posting the link. I do not endorse this! ♥

John has an ongoing project, in which he sells everything he owns (i.e. all his life) on eBay. All My Life For Sale is the website for this project. At the time of posting this entry, eBay's server was down. Not that I was planning to bid or anything. Just thought I'd mention it. ♥

If you love that little sock puppet dog from Pets.com, you're going to love Puppet Unleashed which contains some unreleased video clips of the sock puppet dog doing, um, stuff. ♥

I wish I could listen to John Williams' "Raiders' March" right now. I'm sure it'll put me in a better mood. But the CD is at home. Blech. Anyway, the song stuck in my head right now is "Can't Fight the Moonlight" by LeAnn Rimes. It's been stuck in my head all weekend. I finally downloaded the mp3 yesterday. I thought it would get the song out of my head. Boy, was I wrong. ♥

So someone mentioned something to me in a chat about how two webloggers who used to be friends, housemates and then lovers were splitting up and how the woman posted a (personal) note from the man in her blog with her own angry commentary for everyone to read. I went to check it out and found that the man had posted in his blog that he hadn't expected that she would post that note in her blog. Somehow the whole episode bothers me. A lot. I shouldn't have read it. ♥

I wonder how many weblogs called "Blah" are there in Bloggerville. I just spotted two (1, 2) today. I used to know only one. Hmmm. Things you notice when you're bored... ♥

Monday Morning Haiku

Did you know that I
Hate Monday with a vengeance?
I think you did. Yeah.

It's Monday and I'm feeling crappy. Well, I've been feeling crappy since Sunday. That's why I didn't get to do anything to this site at all. I need something to make me feel good about the whole living thing but I just can't think of any. That sucks, very much. I can't even remember the last time I thought that life was good. But I do remember the last time I felt happy. It was when I came up with this design. So I'm a dork. Just sue me. You won't get much. Can you suggest me a happy thought to think about that might cheer me up a bit? ♥

Who's Your Type? My quiz results show that intellectual guy is my type. That's pretty accurate. ♥

I wish I could think of a domain name as long as www.wemadeoutinatreeandthisoldguysatandwatchedus.com to register. Well, not really. I much prefer short domain names. Anyway, that long domain name belongs to a site that is dedicated to "odd quotes, strange statements, bad writing and other oddities of the English language". But I personally think that the url is more interesting than the site itself. ♥

Joe has made more Random Firdas than I ever did. I'll definitely use some of them :)

Ria made me these two (1, 2) and they both really gave me the creep :P

I haven't accomplished anything myself designwise. I just can't think of any fun template to use *sigh* Oh well. Maybe I'll get some inspiration later. ♥

Sunday Morning Haiku

How cold and lazy
This Sunday morning has been
I need my breakfast

But the thing is, there's nothing to eat for breakfast. I'm starving. Well, there's always chocolate bar, but I can't have it because it's supposed to be the cause of my allergy. I had one anyway yesterday because I felt a craving for chocolate, but don't tell anyone, okay?

Today's agenda is to work on the new Blogger template for this design. It already looks fine as it is, but still I think some changes would be nice. I just hope that the changes won't make the design look crappy. I'm prone to uglifying things. ♥

As if you haven't had enough, here's some more dog's anus jokes:

TurlyMing: hi, i'm having problems reading your weblog.
Webgeek Wannabe: uh-oh. what kind of problem?
TurlyMing: i see the dog's anus (which is now larger) and my left hand trembles and closes the browser window

NpSword: I like the random anus thingie.
NpSword: but it means I have to reload quite a bit to get the spork firda with the anus dog.

[Chat transcripts posted without permission. To whom it may concern, please don't sue me. I'm broke. Really.] ♥

Do you have a cat? If so, bring it near the computer, play these sound effects, and tell me how it reacts :) I love impersonating a cat. Only the voice thing, though. Do you want to hear it? Ok, here it is. What do you think? Not bad, isn't it? ;) It never fails to make any cat freeze on the spot *grins* ♥

In Song Fight!, several people make songs for one title. You listen to them, decide which is best, and vote for your favorite. I didn't get to listen to any of the songs since my internet connection just plain sucks, but I kinda like the concept. ♥

There is a local singer who named her baby boy "Anakku Lelaki". If you translate it into English, it will mean "My Child Is A Boy". Personally, I think the name will give the boy a hard time when he's older. Institute for Naming Children Humanely believes that we can achieve a better society through better names for children. I happen to believe them. ♥

THAT, TheSpark.com's take on IT, is pretty amusing. Another amusing thing is that the site doesn't seem to be Y2K1 (?) compliant. The year in their today's date is still 2000 even though the day, date and month are correct. Well, maybe it's not all that amusing to you but it is to me. I'm too easily amused. Anyway, go check out THAT and then tell me what do you think THAT is because, honestly, I have no idea. ♥

I don't know if they're serious or not, but there's actually a Center For Persons Cursed By Evil Fate. If you think you're cursed, you might want to check it out to get enlightened or something. I think I'm cursed but I guess I'll just deal with it my way :) ♥

Saturday Morning Haiku

Cold, grey Saturday
I'm so glad it's not sunny
I just love grey days

Told you I was weird. Well, I don't really have much to say about anything but my new design. I'm in love with it :) I just added another Random Firda that I call "Firda the Wizard", courtesy Robin. And I've randomised the dog. Sometimes it has anus, sometimes it hasn't. I hereby announce that the case of disturbing anus is closed. ♥

It might sound silly, but I'm thinking of a way to customise the dog so that the no-anus-on-the-dog people can do something to remove the anus and the anus-on-the-dog-is-no-problem people can still, you know, enjoy the dog in all its glory. Hmmm. There's gotta be a script for that. ♥

The Pooh-Piglet Psychometric Personality Profiler will tell you which character from Winnie the Pooh you're most like. I'm Eeyore, by the way. I thought I'd be Piglet. You? ♥

I just came across an Indonesian weblog with stolen code from a weblog that belongs to someone I know and somehow it pissed me off. I've been in a really bad mood since morning and seeing it only made my mood even worse. All I want to say is that if you have to steal some code from someone else's site but don't have the decency to give credit where credit's due, you'd better know how to customise it so that it doesn't look like, you know, stolen goods! ♥

Idiots are always right. Imbeciles are never wrong. Morons don't understand, or care, about "right" and "wrong". Guide to dealing with Idiots, Imbeciles and other Two-Thought Screamers will show you how to deal with all three of them. ♥

For something totally useless, learn how to say "The turtle brings wheat at dawn!!!" in 41 languages. Indonesian language is not included, but in case you're wondering, the Indonesian for it is "Kura-kura membawa gandum di waktu fajar!!!" ♥

The last two voicemails I received in my inbox have been sound of silence from an unidentified person in Seattle, WA and a "Hi!" and nothing else from another unidentified person in Los Angeles, CA. I guess people don't send real voicemails anymore these days. Sigh. ♥

For something that's more of 21st century than the home-made washable menstrual pads below, create your own fractal music by entering some numbers, choosing instruments and selecting the scale and other musical settings, and you're set to play your masterpiece (or disasterpiece, it depends) online. Cool, huh? ♥

Guess what I just found? It's a guide to sewing your own washable menstrual pads. I've heard about home-made washable menstrual pads before from some ancient relative, but I never expected to find this on the 'net. I mean, it's so 1920's. This is 2001, for God's sake! ♥

For answers to some questions that you are too afraid to ask, just Ask A Klingon online and get an answer, also in Klingon. Don't worry. They provide you with an English translation of the answer as well. I asked N'Plach (it's the Klingon's name) if Jason Kottke is hot or not and his answer was something about bald starship captains and how silly they look when you're gazing down at them from the weapons console. Hmmm. What do you think? Does that mean hot or not? ♥

Friday Morning Haiku

Friday, go away
I want you to be over
In less than a day

I don't know what the haiku's all about either. Just thought I'd clear that up *grins* I'm feeling so blah. Ugh. It's understandable, though. I was one happy chick yesterday. The day after a happy day is the worst. No, I didn't get myself a boyfriend or anything. I was just happy that the draggable image thingy turned up beautifully. I didn't get to accomplish anything last night since I had to go to the doctor's (where she ordered me to convert into a vegan, but I won't go into that since it's too upsetting), apart from adding some new images to Random Firda. By the way, you still can contribute a new Random Firda if you want. Just take this image and go wild with it. It's fun! :) ♥

I just added three more images to Random Firda, courtesy Diana (see the image), Ria (see the image), and Brad (see the image). Thanks, guys! :)

Thanks also to everyone who has given me nice comments about my new design, with special thanks to David for blogging my new design not once, but twice :P

As to the dog's anus, well, I'm going to do a little survey here: those who think it's disturbing say "Yes!" and those who didn't even notice it say "No!" in my little comment thingy. If most of you find it disturbing, I'll remove it :) ♥

FedEx always reminds me of Chris. Every time I drive past the local FedEx office, I can't help but thinking of Chris. These Unusual FedEx Shipments were no exception. They also reminded me of Chris. Why? Just ask Chris :) ♥

Anyone fancy a duct tape wallet? It will last long for sure. I mean, who wants to steal a duct tape wallet anyway? ♥

Got someone to suck up to all year long? The Schmoozer will do it for you for free for up to 52 weeks. If I got one, I wouldn't feel flattered, though. I prefer something personal, thank you very much. If you think you need some sucking up yourself, try the Instant Schmooze. "You�re not a poodle person. You�re the type of can-do person who eats poodles." That's the kind of compliment you can expect from it. ♥

You still have a few hours another day to nominate this very weblog for the 2001 Bloggies (gotta keep Nikolai busy :P). How about nominating it for "the best-designed weblog" category? ;) *pause* Nah. ♥

Weblog Wannabe: the home of the dog with disturbing anus. ♥

Oh by the way, if you see the Random Firda wearing a PHP t-shirt, it's courtesy John. If you feel like it, you can "donate" a t-shirt to Random Firda. Just grab this image, do as you wish with it and then send it back to me. The only limitations are no resizing the image dimension, no changing the image format (keep it in .jpg format), and no background colour change. Now go wild with it! ♥

Thursday Morning Haiku

Silly, weird doggie
What are you doing down there?
Move up! Move up! NOW!

Is it just my odd computer monitor or does the doggie shows up under me? It's supposed to be up there, next to the bird! It behaved when I viewed it from home and showed up where it belongs *grumbles* Please, please, please tell me it's just my odd computer monitor? It really ruins my morning *sniff!* ♥

If you're using IE, you're in luck. Now you can play with me because all of the images above are draggable! If you don't like the way I put the images around the page, you can always change it to suit your fancy. Fun, eh? ;)

Netscape users, if you see any bug (apart from the images not being draggable) or get any error messages, please let me know. Thanks in advance! ♥

I can't wait to go home. I have a great idea for this new design. Something that will allow you to play (when you are really, really bored and have nothing better to do, that is). No, it's not the create-a-t-shirt-for-random-Firda thingy, even though I'm thinking of taking that idea a step further. Just wait and see. I'm sure you're going to love it :)

On a different note, I just hate it when I mix things up in English. I know that I always confuse "yesterday" and "tomorrow" (and vice versa), but only today did I find that I also tend to confuse "horizontal" and "vertical" (and vice versa). That's the reason I always resist from saying that I'm bilingual. I don't want to be a disgrace to the world's bilingual society. ♥

Note to self: Sleeping for only 3 hours can will get you a fever. Don't you ever forget that! Oh, but does every waking moment pay off :) ♥

This World's Shortest Faith Quiz is just so wrong. Well, unless you're an atheist. ♥

For something different, get your free daily Iraqi horoscope. Just don't expect anything heartwarming. ♥

I know this is kind of old but, Am I Stoned Or Not? ♥

I will post some links this evening, as soon as I get home from work. Promise. Scout's honour. I get that guilty feeling again for not posting any interesting link for days. I thought I was through with it. Oh well.

By the way, if you feel like contributing a t-shirt to my "random Firda", feel free to save the image on top left corner of this page, delete whatever it is on the t-shirt, put your creation on it, and send it back to me. I'll give you credit, of course. You can even change the colours of my clothes and shoes. It's fun for the whole family! :) ♥

Wednesday Morning Haiku

I am back to work
I am only half awake
Three hours of sleep

So much for wanting to get better, huh? I only slept for 3 hours last night. But I really, really wanted to get the new design up. I'm glad I did. The new design looks even better when viewed with my work computer than when I viewed it from home. Probably because my work computer monitor has a better resolution than my own poor, old home computer one. The only thing that annoys me is that the images on the top seem to be too wide so the horizontal scrollbar shows up at the bottom of the window. How wide is a computer screen anyway? I thought a monitor with 800x600 resolution was 800 pixels wide. Boy, was I wrong. 800 pixels are much too wide! If I do the math correctly, the images above are 785 pixels wide, but still they're too wide. Can anyone help? ♥

So, what do you think? ;) Do you like it? Hate it? Does it look crappy in your browser? Let me know!

Um, I hope the images above don't fall apart anymore. The girl (which I think doesn't really look like a girl) is supposed to be me. And the image is randomised! If you reload, you might see me wearing another t-shirt. Cool, huh? Well, maybe it's not really all that cool, but, hey, I'm trying! I haven't got around to changing the Blogger template so I decided to just use the old template. Hopefully I'll get around to changing it before too long.

This is not the design I was working on last weekend. I only came up with it this afternoon. The FirdaTrooper that Nikolai made me last weekend inspired me to create this design. That, and all my dreams of green fields and blue sky and singing birds and beautiful flowers. Not sure why I included the dog, though. I'm not really a dog person.

Another highlight for today was I finally received the CD Bryan sent me. Woohoo! It's the Spielberg/Williams Collaboration. I just love John Williams' works, especially "The Raider's March". It's fantastic. Thanks, Bry! :) And I finally got around to submitting my nominations for the 2001 Bloggies. It gave me a feeling of accomplishment.

Oh, by the way, could you tell me if this design looks fine in any version of Netscape? I'd really appreciate it if you could. ♥

I did have a nightmare last night. I'm on a holiday with my family. We're staying at a cottage in the mountain. One night I go to the balcony on the second floor to see the view. From there I can see a cemetery at the foot of the mountain which looks oddly colourful with lights. As I'm enjoying the view, suddenly the sun rises and it's morning already. I walk to the edge of the balcony to see if there's anyone downstairs who noticed the weirdness, but then I trip on something on the floor and fall down the balcony to the ground. I woke up when I'm still floating in midair. I wonder what the dream means. ♥

I'm off to the clinic for the blood test. More later. ♥

Tuesday Morning Haiku

I'm feeling better
I keep telling myself that
Hope I'll believe that

Sorry about yesterday's episode. I was just angry at myself. It was my fault that I got a fever and that my blood pressure was terribly low. I didn't get enough sleep all weekend. I only got a total of 8 hours of sleep in 2 days. I shouldn't have attempted to be a night person (again) because it's the same with cutting my wrist, only without any blood. I can't stand looking at blood. It makes me feel sick to the stomach. That's the main reason I hate blood tests, really. Anyway, the doctor's given me the ultimate medicine or "the medicine of the gods" as she called it. If it doesn't work either, I might have to be hospitalised. Hmmm, I wonder if they have internet at the hospital. Most probably not. Blech. ♥

I'm too angry to blog. Maybe tomorrow. Right now all I want to do is to sleep and hopefully have a nice dream. No, scratch that. A nightmare will be fine. I'll be happy when it ends. I always feel disappointed when I wake up in the morning and realise that all the lovely things that happened only a minute ago are only in my dream. Goodnight, sad, cruel world! ♥

Monday Night Haiku

Have you ever felt
Like everything's against you
That you want to scream?

I'm feeling that way right now. My CSS didn't turn up which makes my new design look extremely crappy and the worst of all is I don't have the energy to fix it, let alone to finish and upload the design tonight. I've been having a fever (again) since yesterday. I just came back from the doctor's where she threatened to get me hospitalised if I didn't get better. I mean, it's not like I WANT to be sick all the time! Hell, I'd rather die than living but being ill all the time. It made me really angry. Anyway, I have yet another blood test scheduled tomorrow. I hate blood tests. And I hate having to call in sick again. I really feel like crying. Well, I think I'll do just that. Cry. It'll probably make me feel better. ♥

The redesign is still in progress. It'll be launched in, um, several hours. I promise I'll update a lot tonight. That is, if I'm not too sleepy :P Hey, I didn't go to bed until 4am this morning, and had to wake up at 8 am. Was trying hard to finish the new design, but didn't quite made it. Bummer. Well, just thought I'd keep you updated :) Have I mentioned that it's Monday and it's a holiday? It's heaven! If only I didn't have to see the doctor tonight... ♥

Ugh. I think I don't really like how the new design turned up. What to do, what to do... ♥

What is your White Trash Name? Mine is Big-Bo Earwood. Boy, am I glad I'm not a white trash. ♥

Sunday Morning Haiku

I'm feeling so weird
Sunday always makes me feel
So weird. Yes, weird. Weird.

Yet another oh so crappy haiku by yours truly. I've decided not to get rid of the daily haiku. I know it's a little hard to believe, but some people actually like it. Anyway, if you don't see too many updates these last couple of days, that's because I'm actually redesigning (surprise, surprise!). I'm hoping to have the new design up and running tonight. Yes, it is colourful, and yes, it'll make your eyes bleed, but what the heck. I happen to like loud colours. No, I'm not a loud person. ♥

Test your knowledge on pop stars and pop music by taking the Pop IQ Quiz. I surprisingly scored well (8-10), which, according to them, means that I'm ready for a mike and a recording contract. Hmmm. There's something really wrong about this, but I'm too sleepy to figure it out. Oh well. ♥

I haven't tried this, but iTraceYou.com is offering an email confirmation service. It will tell you when an email that you sent gets read by the recipient. It's a free service, by the way. Not sure what the catch is. But if you're planning to send someone a love letter through email, you might want to sign up :P ♥

Saturday Morning Haiku

[Insert some lovely
Verses in 5-7-5
Syllables in here].

I just couldn't think of any haiku to write. I didn't even have anything to talk about this morning, but luckily Nik made me a FirdaTrooper, so I finally have something to blog about :) What makes FirdaTrooper different from other StorTroopers is that FirdaTrooper is wearing a <BODY> t-shirt (anyone who knows me knows that it's my favourite t-shirt), not available in the StorTrooper wardrobe. This is FirdaTrooper and this is the StorTrooper I made of myself that I already submitted to the Blogging StorTroopers (& Friends). I'm all about bandwagon-jumping these days :) ♥

I can't believe today is almost over. I didn't get to accomplish anything redesign-wise. But I got to chat with 5 people, which was nice. Nikolai was khaki, John thought I should post my wishlist, Bryan thought I tried too hard, Jared thought I was American, and Vitri was Indonesian. Goodnight, world! ♥

skipintro is a tribute to all those flash intro pages that take forever to load. And when they say it may take forever to load, they really mean forever. ♥

I was wondering about the purpose of this fruit converter, so I tried it, and now I know. No, I'm not going to tell you what the purpose is. You just have to find out for yourself. ♥

My little brother, who works for a leading Indonesian news portal, was asked to translate this article, Clinton Friend Riady to Plead Guilty on Donations, by his boss, but it was either he was too lazy or his English plain sucked, he begged me on the phone to translate it for him. I've never been able to say no to my little brother so I said okay, under one condition: he had to bring home any of my favourite food for dinner. He was happy to comply. I already sent him the translation hours ago. He still hasn't come home, and I'm getting really hungry. Blech. ♥

If you need to buy a present to give to someone that is hard to buy present for, perfect present picker might be able to help you. I tested the search system with myself in mind and the results were not all that accurate. But who knows, it might work with other people. ♥

Before you take your driving test, be sure to check out Mr. Know-It-All's Online Guide to Signs for, um, twisted interpretations of traffic signs. ♥

re-member is a really cool online memory game. It's also very addicting. But since I suck at any kind of games (apart from the good, old Tetris), I couldn't get past level 4. I'm sure you can do better :) Update: I made it to level 6. Yay me! *grins* How about you? ♥

Friday Morning Haiku

I love my blanket
My dear, old, smelly blanket
My prized posession.

I don't think it's smelly, but my mum seems to think so. I can't sleep without my blanket. The blanket even has a name. Its name is "Nyok". It has something to do with my childhood habit of sucking my thumb. I just had to suck my thumb while holding my blanket. Yeah, I was cute like that *grins* I stopped my thumbsucking habit when I entered junior high, thinking that I was all grown-up now, but I just couldn't get rid of the habit of sleeping while holding my blanket. It gives me a sense of security. Maybe someday when I have someone to hold at night, I'll get rid of it :) ♥

If you feel like tickling someone but there's no one around, you can always distance tickle this boy. Isn't the internet wonderful? ♥

Good point. Only one thing: I wasn't promoting "we were here first" ideology. I hate it as much as you do. My point was that Pyra should not be accepting new users if they can't handle it. Does that make me a heartless bitch? ;) ♥

So I went to a bookstore yesterday after work to buy a book on PHP, but when I finally found the well-hidden computer book shelves, I was greeted with a lot of books on FrontPage 2000, and nothing on PHP. I know I can learn PHP off the net, but I always find learning things from a book easier than learning things from the net. The reason I want to learn PHP is really simple: because it can make your URL look so much more sophisticated. Besides, all the cool kids do it in PHP. And true to my wannabe nature, I want to use PHP too so that people would think I'm cool! Told you I always did things for some silly reasons :) ♥

Last week I found a link to e-blots at Fairvue Central. When I first went there, this was the scribble of the day. After I entered my interpretation, I found that I was the second person to interpret the scribble. The first person was "khaki". Ever since that day, everytime I came to e-blots, I found myself looking for "khaki", but I never saw him/her again. Anyway, in case "khaki" is reading this (which I doubt), I want to let you know that "plum" is looking for you :) Just don't ask her why. She really doesn't know. She's just being sentimental, I think. ♥

I don't have much time to blog today as I have plenty of work to get done before my long weekend and I couldn't find anything blogworthy in my half hour of morning surfing so I decided to just list the top 10 reasons why you should nominate my blog for the 2001 Bloggies (there's nothing wrong with shameless self-promotion, really):

1. My weblog is probably the only weblog by an Asian living in an Asian country that you read. There's no "the only Asian weblog I read" category, but there is "the best Asian weblog" category *hint, hint!*

2. I called in sick a few times just so that I could stay at home and blog.

3. Blogging is my life. I was going to say "was" but that would be lying.

4. Sometimes I dream of blogging in my sleep. I've even met several other webloggers in my dreams, which include Brad, Nikolai, Bryan, Neale, Ev, and Jason Kottke. None of those dreams was a wet dream. Sorry to disappoint you.

5. You either like my crappy daily haiku or my duck or both.

6. You have a crush on me. Even if you don't, pretend that you do and nominate my blog anyway.

7. You don't like me and you want to torture me with the (15 minutes of) fame of being a Bloggie award winner. I can't handle fame. Seriously.

8. I make US$20.01 in two lousy work days. In case you don't know yet, the Weblog of the Year winner will be awarded an amount of US$20.01. If I won, it would equal two days off from work for me, and two days off do mean a lot for someone who doesn't like their job.

9. I'm not on The A-List. Isn't that enough reason to nominate my blog? ;)

10. You think my weblog is the coolest weblog around. I don't think you exist but, hey, who knows?

I haven't submitted my nominations yet, but one thing for sure, I'm not going to nominate my own blog. It would take half the fun of it if I did. After all, the whole Bloggies award thing is all about fun. Isn't it? Ok, so it's all about popularity contest, but popularity contest is fun. You know, fun, for, like, 5 minutes, before the bitching starts? ;)

Now go fill out the nomination form! Shoo! I promise to blog more tonight (or tomorrow morning if you're in North America). See ya! ♥

Thursday Morning Haiku

Thank God it's Thursday
For tomorrow is Friday
Long weekend begins.

Friday is not a holiday, but I'm taking a day off from work. Monday is an American holiday. It's either Martin Luther King's or Washington's birthday, I can't remember. Maybe neither. I just know it's a holiday.

The car refused to start this morning so I went to work on a cab. The cab driver's daughter was also on the cab with us halfway to my workplace. She was on her way to college. Not that I mind. I like everything to be just a little bit unusual. It keeps me from getting bored. God knows just how easily I get bored. ♥

I went to see the doctor (again) a couple of days ago. Not taking the medicines didn't seem to do it to stop the allergy. So the doctor went to the extreme and ordered me to eat vegetables only, at least until the allergy went away. I have nothing against vegetarianism, mind you, but I do hate vegetables! I'm a true meatatarian and partially a fruitatarian. I'm no vegetarian. Anyway, I've been forcefeeding myself vegetables these last couple of days as I really want to get rid of the allergy, but you know what sucks? There's still no sign that the allergy is going away. Blech. Oh, sweet, tasty, juicy meat, how I miss you so! :( ♥

Last week I bought a book on colour harmony with a lot of lovely pastel colour combinations in it. I spent hours flipping through the book all weekend just to see all the lovely colours and thinking about all the colourful web pages I'd make as soon as I got my computer fixed. The book kept me happy while I was offline all weekend. You can be sure that the new design is going to be quite colourful :) ♥

"Deaths in Disneyland" sounds so much like a title of a whodunnit flick, doesn't it? But these deaths are real. Apparently, eight guests have been killed on Disneyland attractions since the park's opening in 1955, and it was mainly because of their own stupidity. ♥

If you want Clinton to grant you presidential pardon, here's the request form. The current U.S. President is still Clinton, isn't it? ♥

My favourite number is "7". I've never thought of it as a lucky number. I just like the sound of it. "7" just sounds so nice, in any language of the world. It also happens to be my birth date. So, what's your favourite number and why? ♥

I was so bored, I actually enjoyed reading some stranger's driving adventures that are barely exciting at all, although slightly amusing. Why don't you tell me something about your today's driving adventure to and from school or work? There was nothing unusual I saw on my way to work, except for an army bus' driver who kept on honking because he thought he owned the country so he had the right not to stop when the traffic light turns red. What a jerk. ♥

If you're culinarily-challenged (or should I say "gastronomically-challenged" instead?), you might want to try Fried Green Tomato Hornworms. It looks very, uh, tasty? ♥

Wednesday Morning Haiku

Organizine's dead
And Blogger rules once again
With two new servers

And that means I'll have to change my redesigning plan. Organizine won't be a part of it. The new design of Weblog Wannabe will probably consist of at least three Blogger-powered weblogs thrown together on one page using SSI. I've been resisting to use SSI for months, but I guess there's no better time for a change than a new year.

It's too bad that Organizine didn't last long. It was nice to know that you had an alternative should Blogger decide to die down. But with two new servers, I guess it'll be awhile until Blogger starts playing up again. At least I hope so. ♥

I have a 4-day weekend coming up! Joy! :) I'll have enough time to finish the redesign. I'm going to use Blogger, Organizine and Greymatter in one template. It's not possible to do so here, but fakegeek.org (the blank page domain) server will support it. Sort of. It will still be located here at wannabegirl.org, though. I just need to find out how to do file include using javascripts. If you know how to do it, please email me or leave a Quack! I'll be forever grateful. ♥

Since my home computer is mute no more, I'm accepting song requests again. So I can't sing to save my life, so what? Let's face it, you don't get people singing a song that you want them to sing just for you every day! But if you prefer to sing me a song instead, just call my voicemail (the number's on the sidebar) and sing me, um, I don't know the title, but it goes like this: "If you're happy and you know it clap your hands..." I'm sure you know that song :) ♥

I have a question for you: do you think anti-elitism in online communities equals jealousy? It's a yes/no question, but if you'd like to elaborate, feel free. And I'm asking you because I really don't know the answer. Enlighten me? ♥

The Face on Mars: Is It Keanu? You be the judge. It looks more like an ape than Keanu to me. Keanu is cute and all, but honestly, the dude can act just as well as Ricky Martin can dance. Even my mother is disgusted at the way Ricky Martin dance in the "She Bangs" video. That is if you can call it a dance. ♥

What's so wonderful about the Boogie Bass Hack to me is not how you can program the silly talking fish to say things that you want it to say. It's the fact that someone would bother to hack a silly talking fish just to have something special to give to a friend. It's just so sweet :) ♥

Have fun at Cate's Garage Sale Finds, because making fun of tacky and weird stuff found in garage sales is, well, fun. ♥

Tuesday Morning Haiku

I'm down with a flu
And I don't know what to do
Oh well. How are you?

I may not take any other medicine while I'm on treatment to get rid of the allergy caused by all the medicines I'd taken all these months, so I guess I'll just have to live with the stupid flu this time. How fun. NOT! Anyway, one thing did make me smile this morning, so things are not really all that doom and gloom. It's amazing how kind words can make someone's day. I should make it a belated New Year's Resolution to say kind words more often to more people. And bash Blogger and Kottke less often. Hi, Jason! I think you're an elitist, but I like you anyway! :) ♥

Hi, I'm posting this from home. Yay! My computer's still slow as ever, but at least everything's working just fine. Happy, happy, joy, joy! :) Expect a redesign in Weblog Wannabe and a mega update in babes very soon! ♥

So I was singing this Indonesian song about a man who is saying goodbye to his mistress, and my mother caught the last few lines, which more or less mean "goodbye, undisclosed love; may you forget me fast" and she just had to complain, "Why do you always have to sing such sad songs?" And then she told me that I should've changed the lyrics into "go away fast, undisclosed love; i'll find another just as fast". Mum can be so funny sometimes. And so out of context. ♥

I wonder if this was the tool that you could use to cheat on Power Bloggers (the number of clickthroughs, that is) before Andre took it down. If it was, how ironic :) ♥

This post by Ev really bothers me:

"For those who have asked: Yes, you can still contribute. We got one server already (thank you!), but we haven't quite reached our goal and don't have enough extra server power to stay ahead of the growth curve for long. And with this latest round of press (see below), we're going to need more than ever! :)"

Have you ever wondered why some weblogger put up a link to your weblog on their sidebar? I always wonder about it everytime I see a link to Weblog Wannabe on someone's sidebar. It makes me wonder if they linked because they really do like and read my weblog or because of some other reason. Each link to other weblog on my sidebar has a reason. Some of the reasons are really silly. But then again, I seem to always do things for some very silly reasons anyway. So here it is; I link to...

Nikolai because he is my design hero. His posts confuse me sometimes, but I love his site design, and his site features totally rock! I bug him a lot every time I redesign and that's because I trust his judgement when it comes to design. He has an eye for it. He's also the (unlucky?) receiver of a great many of silly songs sung oh so horribly by yours truly.

Bryan because he has the coolest webcam (which is temporarily offline) in Bloggerville. In fact, it was his webcam that got me to know him in person. He's an all around nice guy. He can make me laugh and cry at the same time. And he actually cares about my silly crushes. He still can't guess my current crush, though. Have I mentioned that Bryan is an internet superhero? He is. I know. You just have to take my word for it.

Jordan because he's the first weblogger that I met when I just set my foot in Bloggerville. He's also the first weblogger who blogged me. He stopped me from quitting blogging a few days after I started. He gives great personal advice, too. If he had AIM or ICQ, I'd probably turn to him a lot for advice. Lucky for him, he doesn't think much about instant messaging software.

Mike because he is my official blog brother, and he's not ashamed of it.

Jason S. because I think I'd get along great with him if I knew him offline.

Joe J. because, for an internet rockstar, he's very low-profile. If I ever became an internet rockstar, I think I'd have a hard time keeping a low profile.

Joe U. because he is my uncle. Really. Ok, so he's not really my uncle, but I've always known him as Uncle Joe. He inspired me to start MetaFirda.

Matt K. because I envy him for having a library degree like me, but working in a non-library related field, while I'm stuck with my library job.

Matt H. because he taught me a lot about UNIX. He's a self-proclaimed BOFH.

Chris P. because he makes me wish I was a hot gay guy.

Chris H. because I made him laugh once. It had something to do with "sloppy second", I think. He might not remember it, though.

Joe E. because he's been reading me for as long as I can remember.

Brad G. because he's funny and he has a great singing voice.

Brad M. because his weblog looks pretty.

DVG because he made my 27th birthday less crappy.

David P. because he likes my duck.

Jason L. because he's a doctor who blogs.

Katy because she's one sweet British gal and her posts are very British. I just love everything British. She sent me a really cute ducky postcard once, which is sitting on top of my computer monitor.

Tom because he makes good points.

Jason K. because he used to be my web crush before I knew he had a girlfriend. I just don't find guys who are married or have a girlfriend crushworthy.

Ev because he started Blogger.

Caroline because she reminds me a lot of myself.

Andre because he was very sympathetic.

Wendell because he makes me laugh with his posts.

Brennan because I like his name. I just love Irish names.

Harlan because he took my silly ramblings seriously.

Lasara because she's so wise for her age.

Dican because she's the first other Indonesian weblogger I met.

Neil because he tried to find me a boyfriend on the WWW once (and failed miserably).

Brian because he thought I knew what he'd gone through.

Tim because I had fun talking to him in #blogirc once. The funny thing is, I can't remember what we were talking about anymore. But I know I had fun.

Elise because she's telling it like it is.

Tarsh because he used to talk to me a lot.

Jish because he loves girls and girls love him. I'm a girl, so I love Jish :)

Rabi because I like her weblog title.

Meg because she's the only Pyrate who ever emailed me.

Heather because she's good with words.

Daniel because he came up with stuff I wish I'd come up with first.

So, why did you put a link to my weblog on your sidebar/links page? ;) ♥

If you're thinking of giving a gift to someone with a pen-chewing habit, this is a good idea. I wouldn't want to chew it. Heck, I wouldn't even want to use it! So I guess it's not such a good idea after all. Oh well. ♥

Get your name (or any name) turned into a kaleidoscope using the Namescape Generator. My first name made a lovely kaleidoscope, but my full name made a really crummy kaleidoscope, even though my last name is really short and sweet. Hmmm. ♥

The Online Dictionary of Playground Slang will make you wonder if children are really *that* dirty-minded. One word I found in the dictionary that I like is "acrobrat" (adj.), which means "kids who attach poles to the front axle of their bikes so they can bounce up and down on the front wheel - a bit like a pogo stick". Cute :) ♥

Not being a native English speaker, I don't quite understand most of the euphimisms I read in The Always Amusing Euphemism Generator, but since the title suggests that it's "always amusing", I decided to blog it anyway :) If you're good at making up euphimisms (which I don't -- I'm just too straight-forward), you can submit some to them. ♥

Monday Morning Haiku

I can't believe that
It is Monday already
At least I'm online

Not that it's any consolation. I just want to be home and online :( But since my home computer is still not fixed yet (the silly "computer doctor" didn't keep his promise to fix it in 2 days), home means spending all my time offline, which doesn't really mean much since all I do is just slacking around. The only thing that made me smile this morning was this picture of Pyra's new server. Well, the server didn't really make me smile, but the smile on Matt, Meg, and jack's faces did. Smile is contagious, you know. You should smile more often :) Yes, YOU! ♥

I can't update babes a.k.a. web babies until I get my home computer fixed. As soon as it's fixed, I promise you that there'll be a mega-update there. Meanwhile, keep all those cute baby pictures of yours coming! ♥

Hmmm, maybe I should give out something like Millennial Medley Medals to weblogs that I like. Of course I'll still nominate them for the 2001 Bloggies, but they might now win there. I want all of them to win. Yes, I'll definitely give out my own awards. Just wait. Thanks for the idea, Medley! :) ♥

Ah, so Adam has finally launched Organizine, "a browser-based tool to create, manage, and publish documents on the web". Cool! It's kind of like Blogger, only more journallish than webloggish. I've signed up for an account already. You should too :) ♥

Do you still remember the first music recording you ever bought? I didn't get enough allowance to buy anything but lunch from my parents until I was in high school, so I didn't buy my first music recording until 1989. It was Madonna's "Like A Prayer". Madonna might have produced many more albums since then, but "Like A Prayer" is still the only Madonna's album that I ever bought and thoroughly enjoy. So, what was the first music recording you ever bought? ♥

I woke the whole house up last night with my overactive imagination. I thought I heard the wind chimes chiming which was usually a sign that someone was coming in or out of the house through the back door. It was quite unlikely that any of us would come out of the house in the middle of the night so I assumed it must be some burglar coming in to rob us. I checked if there was any movement downstairs and I spotted a moving shadow, which I assumed was the shadow of a human. The burglar! So I woke my little brother up. His room is right next to mine. I told him that I thought I saw an uninvited guest downstairs. He went down the stairs and told me to wake my big brother up, but I didn't. There was no use. My big brother is hopeless in emergency situations. He gets panic very easily. So I followed him down the stairs instead. Once we were downstairs, my brother woke our parents up, told them about my suspicion, and soon we started searching every corner of the house for the "burglar", but we found no sign of them. After we were sure that there was no burglar, we all went back to bed. Neither my parents nor my brother complained about me being paranoid, which was good, because I felt dead guilty for interrupting their sleep for nothing. Hadn't my father brought the whole incident up this morning, I would've thought that it was just a dream. ♥

I can see the resemblance, but Bryan's hair is bigger *grins* And the bloke has a weblog too :) ♥

Yay, Wendell is back! Wendell was one of the few webloggers who could really make me laugh with his posts, even if I didn't really know what he was talking about. Hey, I didn't put a link to his site on my sidebar for nothing! Welcome back, Wendell! I'll be looking forward to the return of Blog Party :) ♥

The list of Grammy nominations is out, and I secretly pray that none of the likes of Britney Spears and Christina Aguilera nor any of the boy bands will win. Nothing personal. I just want some surprises. I need some surprises. There's just not enough surprises in the world to keep me from getting terminally bored. ♥

Thursday Morning Haiku

Why can't today be
Friday already? Why, oh,
Why? Please tell me why!

Ok, so it's a crappy haiku. It's nothing new, don't you think? Anyway, I brought my poor, old computer to the computer doctor (?) to get fixed yesterday after work so if everything's going well and there's no major problem with my computer, I'll be back online from home again by the end of the week. Keep your fingers crossed for me, will you? I really can't wait to start redesigning. ♥

My one and only offline New Year's resolution is to find the courage to quit my job. ♥

I went to see the doctor again last night. As it turned out, all the medicines I took all these months have backfired and poisoned my blood. Lovely, eh? Just when I was beginning to feel well, this had to happen. ♥

If I can borrow my brother's credit card, I will help make Blogger go faster. Well, actually I just want the stickers, but helping make Blogger go faster does sound much more noble *grins* ♥

Here's yet another blurry picture of yours truly, taken less than 2 weeks ago. I took the picture myself. The camera was too close to my face. Hence the blur. I was wearing my favourite <BODY> t-shirt. Do I look crushworthy or what? ;) ♥

I just realised that I bought so many things for some very silly reasons. The last thing I bought for a silly reason was Moby's CD. I bought it just because I thought he looked geekish when I saw him in the MTV's Europe Music Awards. I only like two songs off that album: "Porcelain" and "South Side". I don't really like "Natural Blues", which apparently was Nikolai's #1 song of the 2000. Sorry, Nik :P ♥

I love having crushes. It makes me feel all warm and tingly and it gives me a reason to smile like a dork all day.

I love guessing other people's crushes. It's one of the two things I mastered back in high school (the other thing I mastered was how to be different from the rest, and loving it).

I have a web crush, and that's all you need to know :) ♥

Wednesday Morning Haiku

One nice, long post's gone
Gone with the silly Windows
As it crashed (and burned?)

And I don't feel like writing it all over again. I'm feeling so blah. I always feel blah the first day I get back to work after a long holiday. Even the fact that I can get online, now that I'm back to work doesn't make me feel better. I just want to be home and online :( Anyway, please expect less posts than usual until I get my home computer fixed. Hopefully sometime next week things will be back to normal again and I can be the good, old blogging machine that you all knew and loved again :)

Meanwhile, why don't you nominate my weblog for the 2001 Bloggies award? ;) It can go to the "best Asian weblog" (yep, this weblog is just as Asian as the weblogger :), "best tagline of a weblog" ("trying hard to be like yours" is pretty original, don't you think? ;), "most humorous weblog" (if you think I'm funny, which I doubt), "best blogger-powered weblog" (hey, it's only a suggestion!), "best new weblog" (I did start blogging in 2000, you know), and *gasp* "weblog of the year" (if you feel generous enough) categories. That definitely will make me feel better :) ♥