About These Entries
You are reading Weblog Wannabe archived entries from the month of January 2005, written by Firda Beka.
The next archived entries are from February 2005 and the previous archived entries are from December 2004. Most recent entries can be found on the main page.
Site Credits
This weblog is powered by Movable Type. The entries are mostly the results of tireless web browsing with my best buddy, Mozilla Firefox. Site design is copyrighted by Firda Beka. That's me, not you.
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links for 2005-01-31 (3)
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Can anyone tell me how to cross the gutter in level 1? I keep falling into it. :(
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A boardgame based on the computer game. Probably not as thrilling. Not that I’ve ever played Doom. I’m just saying.
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Somehow it saddens me. Why, Google, why?
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I got 8/10 correct. Pretty pathetic, if you asked me. I thought I could do better than that.
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Drive your orange race car through the maze. Pick up flags for points. Don’t crash into the other car. It’s not really that easy. I still can’t pass level 1.
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It looks more like something else than a spoon to me. No, I’m not going to tell you what I have in mind.
Port Dover in Winter (1)
We went to the small town of Port Dover on the north shore of Lake Erie on Sunday afternoon because I wanted to see the beach in winter (after seeing the Jim Carrey and Kate Winslett characters in “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind” going to a beach in winter). We didn’t expect to find the lake all frozen up with some mountains of ice on top of it but that’s what we saw. You could go there, walked all over the lake, and pretend you were in the Arctic! It was awesome. And the sunset was breathtaking. I took a bunch of pictures while we were there which I’ve turned into a Flickr photoset. Have a look. You’d wish you were there. ;)
You know, I think I’ve almost become a Canadian because when the temperature is -2°C, I could make a comment about how warm it is and actually mean it. You wouldn’t be able to do that unless you’ve walked around outside when the temperature is lower than -30°C (with wind chill anyway). I really love Canadian winter, even if some real Canadians hate it. To those of you who think I’d die in winter, I think I’ll survive it just fine. :)
Next in my winter agenda: building my very first snowman (I’ve played 5-pin bowling and walked on the frozen Lake Erie, but I still haven’t built a snowman — sad, eh?) and going to a ski slope. No, I won’t go skiing. It would be safer for a walking disaster such as myself not to do anything extreme. I just want to take pictures. Here’s looking at the boy’s general direction.
links for 2005-01-28 (3)
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Voting time has been extended to February 3 to make up for the downtime.
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Scientists have started producing a hybrid creature that’s part human, part animal. Freaky?
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I got an A-plus for getting 9 out 10 right. What can I say, I was a school nerd. Not that I’m ashamed of it.
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It’s like Tetris with a twist. I scored 14,000 on the easy level. Will have to try the other levels.
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It’s got to be the trickiest game I’ve ever played. My highest score? A measly 380.
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Question: How many parasites and types of bacteria are exchanged during a typical French kiss? Answer: More than you want to know.
Out of Space (2)
If anyone tried to post a comment or email me in the last 12 hours or so and failed, that was because I ran out of space on my hosting account. See, I shared a 200MB hosting account with the boy. He got 125MB and I got 75MB (surprisingly, he has all that much more online crap than me). But what’s really eating out the space is the web stats programs installed by the host. We never even check those. Why we have to account for the amount of space all those programs are taking up is beyond me. It might be the common practice among web hosting companies for all I know. And no, you can’t just delete those programs. If you delete the web stats program files, they will automagically pop back in a couple of days! So annoying.
Deleting stuff out of that folder does free up a fair amount of space so that’s what we’ve been doing from time to time for as long as I can remember. It sucks, but it’s also the only sucky thing about our hosting account. Other than that, we don’t really have anything to complain. Maybe we just have to give up our battle against the silly stats programs and upgrade. In the mean time, commenting and emailing can commence. I’ve freed up some 15MB of space from the damn stats folder.
links for 2005-01-27 (0)
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This game reminds me of another game that I can’t remember the title of. I didn’t get to finish all 5 levels until my second try.
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Bounce Bob from one platform to another. Use your mouse to aim and then left click to shoot. Cool but frustrating.
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A number of interesting trivias. Did you know that most Americans’ car horns beep in the key of F?
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I can think of a bunch of things to do with this script.
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A gallery of pictures of user-submitted art on hands.
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“A mystery chemical isolated from the sweat of young women seems to act as a romance booster for their older counterparts.” That explains a lot.
A Movie Review? Nah! (4)
We just got back from seeing Un long dimanche de fiançailles a.k.a. A Very Long Engagement. Watching the movie, you just can’t help comparing it with Amélie since it’s from the same director and it also has Audrey Tautou and some other actors from Amélie in it.
The humours in both movies are quite similar, though in A Very Long Engagement, it’s somewhat darker because of the war setting. The war scenes are pretty graphic, though. I had to close my eyes every time someone got killed because I really can’t stand the sight of blood, even if I know that it’s just fake blood. Also, in A Very Long Engagement, sepia colours are quite dominant, whereas in Amélie, warm colours are dominant.
A Very Long Engagement is not really a feel-good movie like Amélie, but it was still enjoyable. At least for me. I didn’t check the casting on IMDB before we went to see the movie so when Jodie Foster showed up, I was like “Hey, isn’t she…?” That was quite a nice surprise. There's more inside →
links for 2005-01-26 (4)
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We’re going to see “A Very Long Engagement” tonight. Yayness!
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Not that I’m a Buffy fan or anything, but I know a lot of you are.
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Will have to find Modest Mouse’s “Float On” full video. Perhaps the boy has it?
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Or, how to turn a Kiwi bird into a Kiwi fruit.(categories: humour)
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Follow the beat to Weezer songs and press the right key to score. I scored 74,400 for “Buddy Holly” and 86,450 for “Photograph”.
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“WARNING: If you watch this video you must pass it on and have someone else watch. If you don’t you will die in 7 days.”
List of the 2005 Bloggies™ Finalists (5)
Just in case you didn’t get to see the list of the 2005 Bloggies™ finalists before the site went down (again!) due to the lack of bandwidth, I’m posting the list in the extended entry. But before you do, please click this link to the official site first to see if it’s up! If it’s still down then go see inside. However, you’ll still have to go to the Bloggies™ site to cast your vote whenever it goes back up again. There's more inside →
2-in-1 Fortune (1)
(Fortune Cookies, originally uploaded by firda.)
We bought a jar of fortune cookies the last time we did our grocery shopping, just for the fun of it. I just had one today and the cookie contained two fortunes instead of one. I’ve been told that you’re supposed to add the phrase “in bed” to your fortunes so here’s what my fortunes say: “You will travel far and wide for both pleasure and business in bed” and “Simplicity and clarity should be your theme in dress in bed“. The first one doesn’t sound right and the second one doesn’t really sound like a fortune. But maybe what they mean in the second one is that if I do that, I will have good fortune. Maybe. Who knows. (Don’t mind me, I tend to think too much when I’m sleepy.)
links for 2005-01-25 (0)
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Create your own error message, Windows-style.(categories: fun generators)
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Put together your own breakdance routines.
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Why would anyone want to lubricate stethoscopes with WD40?
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Climate change may lead to droughts, agricultural failure and water shortages in 10 years.
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Help the red beetle to exit. I’m stuck at level 8.
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What happens when an American language nerd meets a bored Indonesian weblogger.
The Bloggies™, Again! (4)
The Bloggies™ site is back up now and turns out that I’ve not only been nominated for the Best Asian Weblog but also for Lifetime Achievement! Yikes! I don’t think I’d be able to compete with big names like Tom Coates, Ernie Hsiung, Meg Hourihan and Derek Powazek, but thanks anyway for your nominations. Like I said before, I’m flattered. But really, the other nominees are more deserving of your votes since the only things I’ve contributed to the weblogging world are a bunch of stupid weblogging quizzes, a silly weblog award generator, and a simple weblog layout generator. I haven’t written any book or article on weblogging, nor have I delivered any thought-provoking speeches in any weblogging conference. I do wish I could contribute more, though.
Music Meme (1)
I don’t usually do survey memes, but since this one is passed on to me by the boy, I just have to be a good girlfriend and comply. :)
1. What’s the total size of music files on your computer?
Well, my computer is back in my room in Indonesia so I have no way to check. I’m using the boy’s computer while I’m in Canada so I’ll just copy the boy’s answer: approximately 3.2 gigabytes of music.
2. What is the last CD you bought?
Oh gosh, I really don’t know. It’s been ages since the last time I bought a music CD. The last few CDs I got are gifts from my weblog readers. They bought them off of my Amazon wishlist. I do have the best readers in the world. :) Anyway, I think the last CD I received in the mail from Amazon is The Red Violin: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack. There's more inside →
links for 2005-01-24 (0)
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Bjork’s new music video, directed by Spike Jonze.
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Study finds that men and women use different brain areas to achieve similar IQ results.
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“[T]he diacritical mark of the beast.” Hehe.
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Just have to post this one to accompany the previous link.
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Today is the most depressing day of the year, experts say.
Mmmm, Cream Collon! (2)
(Mmmm, Cream Collon!, originally uploaded by firda.)
The boy and I went to the Asian food market in Kitchener yesterday (but not before having a nice lunch in a Vietnamese restaurant) for our weekly Asian food shopping and we picked up a bunch of fun Asian snacks. Our favourite acquisitions are pictured above.
I finished the Japanese Cream Collon in less than 15 minutes because it was wicked good and it came in a snazzy box which says 100% Happy Day inside and some Japanese inscription that I don’t know the meaning of.
Hello Panda is the boy’s favourite snack and it was made in Singapore. It’s just some biscuits with chocolate filling. Not really my favourite but it’s not so bad.
I’ve had Japanese strawberry-flavoured Pocky before but never Thai-made ones. I’m sure it will be just as good as ordinary Pocky as I will find out soon.
Finally, the Sunflower seeds which taste fine to me but not to the boy. On the bag you can find instructions on how to eat the seeds. It’s quite educational.
The Asian food market is definitely one of my favourite places in Canada.
The 2005 Bloggies™ Finalists (4)
Apparently, you guys have done a marvellous job pimping up my weblog that it’s once again become one of the Bloggies™ finalists. Thank you! I’m flattered, as always. Unfortunately, the Bloggies™ site is currently down (the dreaded “Bandwidth Limit Exceeded”) and I wouldn’t have known in which category my weblog has become a finalist hadn’t Cowboy Caleb blogged about it. Yup, the category is the Best Asian Weblog once again. So vote for me if you like my weblog. That is, when the Bloggies™ site is back up again.
Oh, by the way, I received two “You’re a Bloggie finalist!” emails from Nikolai, the Bloggies™ founder and sole organiser. Does that mean my weblog is a finalist in two categories? If so, what’s the other category? Anyone know? Nikolai?
Del.icio.us Links (2)
As you can see below, I’m doing what all the cool kids are doing: posting quick links via del.icio.us. I haven’t posted too many links yet, but I’m sure it will grow with time. It’s just so much easier to post links when you don’t have to worry about elaborating to make the links sound as interesting as I think they are (which they probably aren’t, knowing how weird my sense of humour is).
Anyway, if you’d like to subscribe to links only via your newsreader, here’s the RSS feed. If you want to subscribe to both the links and my pointless ramblings, this RSS 2.0 feed should do the trick (now featuring full posts, as it has been for almost two weeks). I’m not sure if anyone would be interested in reading my pointless ramblings without all the fun links so I wouldn’t even bother to create a feed specifically for that segment.
And now, off for lunch I go! Even if it’s, like, -30°C out there. Don’t you just love Canadian winter? I know I do.
links for 2005-01-23 (1)
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Free stock photos for designers (a public Flickr group).
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The movie to be released on this year’s Hallowe’en.
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Using Google to determine how popular and sexy a celebrity is.(categories: celebrities Google)
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Have you cleaned your keyboard lately?
A Dining Table, Finally! (2)
(Dining Table, originally uploaded by firda.)
We finally got ourselves a dining table set a couple of days ago after the boy finally got tired of not having enough space to put things on when we are cooking. It’s now sitting pretty in the corner of our tiny little kitchen, right by the window where it is the coldest. That’s probably the reason we still haven’t dined on it yet.
We were originally planning to get one from IKEA, but after browsing the IKEA catalog, none of the ones they had really struck our fancy. We saw this one at the Canadian Tire awhile ago and it more or less fit the bill so we ended up getting it. Still, the dining table set didn’t end up in our kitchen without giving me life lesson #9,347: Do not buy heavy furniture when it is -23°C outside and you know you can’t get the thing in in one go and, in addition, have to climb at least one flight of stairs to get to your apartment. It’s no picnic, I tell you!
FGotD: Ripley’s IQ Game (8)
If my weblog had a Frustrating Game of the Day (FGotD) feature, Ripley’s IQ Game would be it for today. The object of the game is to jump the balls over each other like you do in a checkers game until you only have one ball left. The least ball I can get so far is two balls. So frustrating. I don’t think it would take a genius to solve it. I guess I just have to keep on trying.
Where is the Speaker From? (2)
Here’s another quiz from the PBS show “Do You Speak American” that American readers might be interested in taking: the regional dialect quiz. Match the dialect in a sound sample with a U.S. region. The boy and I did it together and we only got 4 out of 12 right (it was mostly just guesswork, though). Do you think you can do better?
Legitimate or Fraud? (5)
Take the MailFrontier Phishing IQ Test to find out how good you are at telling whether an email is legitimate or just a phishing fraud. I like to think that I’m pretty good at this but still I only managed to score 80%. I guess it’s because I was being too cautious since I thought a couple of emails were fraud when they were actually legitimate. Let me know how you did.
FGotD: Shove It (1)
If my weblog had a Frustrating Game of the Day (FGotD) feature, Shove It would be it for today. I’m stuck at level 4. I’m sure the solution is very, very simple but I just can’t see it. Yet. Maybe if I try playing it for another hour, I’ll be able to see it. Maybe.
Speaking of games, I finally beat the boy at Mario Party 5. Woohoo! Super Monkey Ball is next on my agenda of videogame world domination. Watch this space for the news of my latest conquer!
Facial Analysis (1)
So I submitted a picture of me to the Face Analyzer and found that I’m actually a very intelligent, low risk, average ambition, very low gay factor, average honor, low politeness, $30,000-$50,000 income, low sociability, low promiscuity, white collar archetyped, Chinese male. Whoa! I didn’t know that! I really don’t know what to feel about this. I have mixed feelings, especially about me being male and impolite.
Okay, I just submitted another picture and this time the analysis was so much better: I’m an extremely intelligent (perfect 10!), low risk, high ambition, very low gay factor, high honor, high politeness, $50,000-$100,000 income, average sociability, low promiscuity, alpha academic archetyped, Chinese, genderless person. Phew. I feel better now. I don’t mind being genderless. Really.
Slow Blogging Day (1)
It’s been a slow blogging day. Well, make it two days. And the sky hasn’t been clear for, like, ever so I’m going to miss seeing Saturn (the planet, not the car) tonight. If the sky is clear where you are, step outside tonight around 7:30pm, look up and look east. You’re bound to notice it.
Today’s been so warm for a winter day (14°C!) and most of the snow has melted. Some people (like the boy) might rejoice but not me. I happen to like winter. I want my winter back!!! And it looks like it is going to be back tonight. The temperature is going to drop to -8°C! Yippee! Happiness is sub-zero temperature. And going out to a Vietnamese restaurant for dinner tonight.
The last time we went to a Vietnamese restaurant, the boy took a tiny bite of a bird’s eye chili (after seeing me chewing it like it was chocolate) and instantly felt like he was dying. Wimp. Poor boy. I hope that experience didn’t traumatise him.
Boring post, huh? Told you it was a slow blogging day!
Chuck It! (2)
Chuck is a very addictive game. You have fun chucking a dummy around and you score some points! My personal record at the time of posting was 208,608 and the top score was some 2,306,092. I’m not sure how one could score that high. So there goes my afternoon. Evil game. Let me know if you have any chucking tips that can help me score millions!
A-to-Z List (0)
Before we drifted off to sleep last night, the boy and I had a conversation about which webloggers belong to the A-List, the B-List, and straight down to the Z-List. I know that talking about it is so 2001 but some people seem to still find the topic worth talking about, even now. I rambled on about it for a little less than 2 hours before I fell asleep. It was really that boring.
Anyway, if you searched Google for “a-list webloggers”, the first result would be this, uh, A-List weblogger porn page (work safe if you work for Google, Six Apart, or Ludicorp). I find it kind of disturbing.
Pad Thai (7)
(Pad Thai, originally uploaded by firda.)
Pad Thai is the boy’s favourite Asian food so I thought I’d try to cook us some for supper. My Pad Thai recipe is basically a bastardised version of this recipe. I put chicken livers instead of shrimps in my version because I thought it would make it more interesting. Sadly, the boy wasn’t so crazy about the livers so shrimps might be a better choice. Chicken livers aside, the boy thought it was good. Care for a recipe? There's more inside →
Oh the Randomness! (1)
Today is your last chance to nominate your favourite blogs in the Fifth Annual Weblog Awards a.k.a. the Bloggies. The boy has casted his votes last week and, being a good boyfriend that he is, he nominated me in a couple categories. Of course I’m going to wait until the last minute to cast mine.
I don’t know what kind of movie Bright Young Things is, but its Splendidiser has made my weblog somewhat more interesting to read. Don’t you agree?
Oh, I keep forgetting to blog about it, but since December 24 last year, I’ve had a Flickr Pro account, which was a gift from Caroline (Flickr). She was one of the first webloggers to give me a linkylove when I just started blogging 5 years ago. Those were the good old days indeed. There's more inside →
Mario Party 5 vs. Halo 2 (2)
I’ve never ever played any videogame in my whole life until a couple of weeks ago when I started playing Mario Party 5 with the boy, for a very silly reason. See, last month I told the boy that I wanted to beat him at Halo 2. Then the boy told me that I needed practice first and that playing Mario Party 5 would prepare me for Halo 2. And I believed him.
Now, I’ve seen the boy playing Halo 2 against one of his friends before. The game wasn’t even remotely close to Mario Party 5. I’m really not sure how I could be good at playing Halo 2 (which is an Xbox game) by playing Mario Party 5 (which is a Gamecube game).
I’ve played Mario Party 5 against the boy for a couple of weeks now and I still haven’t managed to kick his butt. My chance for kicking his butt at Halo 2 seems to be as slim as a sheet of toilet paper.
Paper Mario 2 Sidekick (2)
(Paper Mario Sidekick II, originally uploaded by firda.)
This is what you get for having a gaming geek for a boyfriend. You get to be his sidekick character in a video game. But of course you have to be a little blue dinosaur which he gets to ride on instead of, say, a princess.
Pardon? (14)
Test Your Vowel Power is part of a PBS show called “Do You Speak American?”. I obviously don’t (speak American) because all my answers/guesses are wrong. I swear that the fifth word was “Troy”. Take the test and let me know how you did, especially if you are American.
Montage-a-google (0)
Montage-a-google will search Google for images based on the keyword(s) you enter and display them as a montage. Almost all of the images it came up with when I entered my name or my weblog name seem to come from Google cache because they’re no longer online. Interesting project nonetheless.
My Mother and Music (0)
I got my love of music from my mother. I know a lot of oldies songs because of her. She liked to listen mostly to songs from the 60s. I like to think that it was because they brought back happy memories to her.
There have been at least three occasions while I’m here in Canada that a song brought back memories of my mother. The first occasion was in a church during a wedding ceremony. The wedding singer sang “A Time for Us”, which was one of my mother’s favourite songs. The second occasion was when we were in the car and the boy played a cover version of “Moonriver” on the car stereo. My mum asked me to me sing the day before she died. It was the only song that I could think of so I sang it for her. The last one was a couple of days ago, when one of the characters in the TV show “Lost” sang “La Mer”, which was also one of my mother’s favourite songs. There's more inside →
Bakwan Sayur (3)
(Bakwan Sayur, originally uploaded by firda.)
I made this for breakfast. The recipe’s inside. Not very well written but oh well. (Also, this is more or less a test post from Flickr so pardon the mess.) There's more inside →
The Bloggies™ Update (4)
It’s official. Nikolai, the founder and sole organiser of the Bloggies™ has spoketh. I’m eligible for a nomination in both the Best Asian Weblog and the Best Canadian Weblog categories. Fear my world domination! Or something.
Speaking of weblog awards, have you checked out my wonderfully silly Award-o-Matic? I really need to update the award graphic thingy into something tableless but I’m just too lazy. Oh well. Maybe next year.
So There (0)
I’m sure there are times that, while browsing the Web, you come across something that someone wrote so eloquently which reflects your thoughts so perfectly that it could’ve been written by you, if only you were that prolific. This “So There” entry is one of those things for me. Those are things that I’d like to say to you about the disaster but just couldn’t find the words.
Meanwhile, the U.N. has warned that tsunami death toll could double. AlertNet has also come up with Find A Charity: NGOs respond to Asia tsunamis, which contains a list of worldwide NGOs responding to the devastation caused by tsunamis unleashed by an underwater earthquake on December 26, each with a link to their online donation page.
A Mixed Bag of Randomness (2)
First of all, if I owe you an email, please be patient because I am swamped. I will get back to you. I guess this is what you get for taking a break from replying emails for 2 weeks. My justification: it was holidays season.
Search referral of the day is “how firda beka learn english”. Here’s how: I had an English teacher extraordinaire for a mother and I happened to be her favourite student. The rest is up to your imagination.
Oh, did you know (or would you care) that Britney Spears is planning to quit her music career to become a forensic scientist after being inspired by CSI, the TV show? Probably not. There's more inside →
The Bloggies™ (4)
The Fifth Annual Weblog Awards, also known as The Bloggies™, is here again. Go nominate your favourite weblogs in as many categories as you see fit! I don’t know if I’m still eligible for a nomination in the Best Asian Weblog category (which I’ve won three times already) but you can always nominate me in the Best-Designed Weblog category. Or Lifetime Achievement. Or Weblog of the Year. I know, I’m dreaming. Stop giving me that look.
While you’re at it, take my stupid Bloggies™ quiz that I created last year to find out your chance of winning, just for the hell of it. I got 55% this year, but I know that my chance is much lower than that, if any.
Yearly Wrap-Up (4)
So, it’s 2005 already. The New Year’s Eve highlights include my falling asleep during the viewing of The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou at a local cinema (not that the movie was horrible or anything; I was just sleepy) and my feeling depressed for the rest of the night, which continued on to most of New Year’s Day. Not really a good start to a new year but whatever. I’m not taking any anti-depressant so I can’t really control how I feel.
Last year would’ve been a good year, if only it hadn’t ended up with a major disaster which affected my home country Indonesia greatly. It was hard to feel happy and celebratory on New Year’s Eve when you knew that thousands of Indonesians like myself had just died and thousands others just lost everything. I may not know any of them personally, but they could’ve been my own family. There's more inside →
Read all entries from December 2004 →