About These Entries
You are reading Weblog Wannabe archived entries from the month of June 2005, written by Firda Beka.
The next archived entries are from July 2005 and the previous archived entries are from May 2005. 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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Those Pesky People (13)
I had my first encounter with some of those, uh, door-to-door religion salesmen yesterday. It wasn’t pleasant because they made me angry but I managed to keep my cool and didn’t slam the door on them. First mistake, they were insulting my intelligence by talking to me like I was an idiot *and* in an insulting tone to boot. Second mistake, they just assumed that I was unhappy. “This will totally bring happiness into your life,” one of them said. I’ve come a long way to be this happy and they had the balls to just assume that I was unhappy, just because I didn’t believe in what they did? How dare they? They didn’t even look like a bunch of happy people to start with. I mean, if you’re trying to sell perfume, you should at least try to smell good. I ended up being cranky all evening. Troy kept telling me that they were not worth it but they really pissed me off. Anyway, here’s some snippets from the encounter:
+ I’m sorry, I’m not into religion.
- What? You don’t believe in Jesus?
+ I believe in good people.
- This will totally bring happiness into your life.
+ I’m already happy. Thanks. *close the door*
They’d better be not coming back.
links for 2005-06-29 (0)
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How to make a zombie. Empty veins of blood, then filled them with ice-cold saline solution, replace with fresh blood, use electric shocks to start the heart, and tada!
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It’s pretty obvious, but of course scientists have to make a research to prove it. It’s pretty interesting, though. I love finding out new things about brain.
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Sometimes I wonder if he himself is an alien from another planet. But he sure is getting a lot of publicity lately. And yes, I do believe in aliens.
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This is the site to go when you finally have time to build your own personal R2D2. I just know that some of you would want to. Yes, I’m talking to you. Geeks.
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I posted a link to the first version a while ago. Apparently the game was popular enough to deserve a sequel. I’m not any better at this version, though.
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Research travel destinations, build your own personal travel map, tell friends across the world about your favorite local spots. Perfect for travel enthusiasts.
links for 2005-06-28 (3)
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“A study of smells shows that the scent of grapefruit on women make them seem younger to men — about six years younger.” There you go.
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Google Earth combines satellite imagery, maps and the power of Google Search to put the world’s geographic information at your fingertips. Free software download.
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“Another truism of personal health care — that vitamin C effectively prevents and treats the common cold — bites the dust.” Damn. There goes my placebo.
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Guide the pearls down through the maze into the treasure chest at the bottom of the sea. It looks easy but it’s really not. I really suck at this game.
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You know you want to give one of these to your best friend’s baby. Too bad my nephew and niece don’t do pacifiers anymore. Well, not that I know of anyway.
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According to the test, I’m 20% busy bee, 40% cat nap, and 40% sloth. I really wish I could say that it wasn’t accurate but it is, at least 98.99%.
Holy Missing Ghost Town, Batman! (3)
Yes, that’s Troy’s hairy thigh in the picture. I’m sorry if it disturbs you. The happy-looking girl in the Polaroid is, of course, yours truly. Troy took the picture of me with our Polaroid camera shortly before I took a picture of the picture of me with my digital camera (how’s that for meta?). The pictures were taken in the Conestogo Lake Conservation Area where we spent this past Saturday, just swimming and watching people. We had fun in the sun and managed to keep the sunburn to a minimum. If you’re interested, you can see the rest of the Conestogo Lake pictures here.
We originally went to the area to find a supposedly ghost town located somewhere around the lake called Hollen that we read about in a book about ghost towns in Ontario. We did find the town, but it was not really a ghost town, which was kind of disappointing. But then again, the book was published in 1999. Can’t expect the information in it to still be accurate.
On Sunday, we went to see Batman Begins. It was entertaining, to say the least. I wouldn’t say it was great, but it was enjoyable. What I like the most about superhero movies is the fact that you know the superhero is going to win and that no matter what the bad guy does to the superhero, the superhero is not going to die. What can I say, I love happy endings. Don’t you?
links for 2005-06-24 (0)
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“The survey of 1,125 U.S. doctors found that 76 percent believe in God and nearly 60 percent in some sort of afterlife.” They should do research on scientists next.
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Study suggests that individual brain cells can recognize pictures of Halle Berry or Jennifer Aniston, no matter how the stars are dressed or wearing their hair.
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“Infertility may be becoming more of a man’s than a woman’s problem, new figures suggest.” That should change how things are in Indonesia.
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Make a music video out of Scott Andrew’s new song “Dark Corners”, submit it, and if your video is picked, you can win an iPod Shuffle. Sounds interesting.
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Personally, I don’t think I want to work with superheroes. It must be really stressful since you have to deal with evil geniuses on a daily basis.
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Bounce the pill and turn unhappy faces into happy ones, but try not to overdose. If you do, you’ll lose. It’s a silly game, but fun nonetheless.
Bad Monkey! (6)
+ See? I look like the guy on the t-shirt.
- Yeah, but I look too happy, unlike the monkey.
+ Why wouldn’t you?
- Why wouldn’t I what?
+ Be happy?
- *pause* I don’t know. *confused because for once she actually had no reason to be unhappy*
We got ours for free but you can buy the Bad Monkey t-shirts from here if you’re so inclined.
Troy is away in Indiana until tomorrow. Time to par-tay!!! (Yeah right, as if I have any friends here.)
I haven’t been feeling too well for a couple of days now. Stupid cold. I’m blaming it on Tim Hortons’ Iced Capuccino.
links for 2005-06-22 (0)
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“A study in humans has shown a compound in soya called genistein sabotages the sperm as it swims towards the egg.” But I love soy-based foods. Hrm.
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“This weekend Mercury, Venus and Saturn are going to crowd together in a patch of sky no bigger than your thumb.” Fantastic. I hope the weather will be good.
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“Fans of English soccer club Reading can now take their allegiance to the grave as a local funeral director is offering coffins in the club’s colors.” Um, okay.
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The American Film Institute revealed the top movie quotes of all time in AFI’s 100 Years…100 Movie Quotes, a special television event hosted by Pierce Brosnan.
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The objective is pretty simple: avoid and eat the plants to stay alive and score. But it’s not really as easy as it sounds. At least for me since I’m the worst gamer ever.
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Turn any picture in .gif, .jpg or .png format into a Polaroid-style one using this tool. Have I told you that we have two Polaroid cameras? They’re a lot of fun.
Short Short Story Thursday (2)
From this week on, every Thursday I’m going to post a short short story that I wrote myself. Feel free to do the same if you like. The following story was originally written to amuse Troy at work.
There was this ghost who went to see a doctor because he wasn’t feeling well. The doctor asked the ghost what his problem was and the ghost said, “My heart is beating.” In reply, the doctor said, “That’s good news. That means you’re still alive.” And the ghost went home from the doctor’s office with an identity crisis.
links for 2005-06-16 (1)
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Apparently, close contact with children and relatives won’t make you live longer but close contact with your friends and acquaintances will. I wonder why.
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First, there was a tsunami. Then there was (and still is) a polio outbreak. Now this. Bad things seem to keep happening in Indonesia. I wish it would stop.
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Troy actually saw the naked rambler when he was in Scotland a couple of years ago. Just thought I’d post this news for his amusement. :)
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PledgeBank allows users to set up pledges and then encourages other people to sign up to them. What a great idea! I’ve got an idea for a pledge already.
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Navigate the yellow and red bubbles and try to pop the balloons. I’m currently stuck at level 6. Just sign in as guest if you don’t want to register.
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You know you have a creepy boyfriend when he gives you one of these panties as a present. I wonder if this thing is real. It looks like it.
Wonderfully Random (4)
— It’s starting to feel like Canada again, now that the temperature has gone down to the high 20s (Celsius degree).
— I seem to handle hot weather worse than Canadians, who are used to cold weather.
— If Canadians did live in igloos, they’d all be homeless by now.
— We went to Toronto on Saturday, only to realise that we’d missed watching the Toronto’s World Naked Bike Ride event.
— We made it to SMooSH and Loba’s fun housewarming BBQ party without getting lost (much).
— We brought in our own beef steaks to be BBQ-ed.
— We marinated the steak in a mix of Pepsi, orange juice, black pepper, salt, BBQ sauce, garlic powder, and Maggi seasoning without having the slightest idea what it would taste like.
— The steak turned up to be the best-tasting steak I ever had.
— Housewarming parties make me want to move to a new place. I wouldn’t mind moving to Stratford, where Troy works.
— The Skydome looks ugly with the red Rogers Centre signs on it.
— The CN Tower doesn’t look very glamorous at night.
— Toronto has the biggest raccoons.
— Homeless people make me sad.
— Little kids like Troy, and so do dogs of all breed.
— In Tegan and Sara’s song “I Know I Know I Know”, there’s a line that says “I know I know I know what else are we here for” but I keep hearing it as “I know I know I know solitary hippo”.
— I wish there was really a song with “solitary hippo” in it.
— We watched three episodes of Scrubs on DVD yesterday. Now I’m in love with the show.
— We have a shiny new balcony. We’re going to put a couple of chairs there and hang some flower boxes all over the railings.
— I want to plant the flowers from scratch because it seems to be so much more fun.
— I wouldn’t know what to do with the flower boxes in winter.
— That is all.
links for 2005-06-14 (0)
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Before you decided to leave the Earth and move to this planet, I have to tell you the planet is about 370°C too warm for you to live in. Sorry!
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“A diet rich in calcium and vitamin D might banish pre-menstrual syndrome (PMS), US researchers believe.” I’ll have to remember that, for Troy’s sake.
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Indonesia’s president publicised his mobile phone number so people could complain about government services. So many people called that it crashed the line.
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Daily Dancer is a computer geek who loves to dance. Every weekday morning, he will dance to a different song for you, whether you like it or not.
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How to blog without getting into some kind of trouble, or how not to get dooced for blogging. A required reading for those who blog from work.
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I’m sure I’ve linked to this game before but there seems to be some new levels up since then so I thought I’d post it again because it’s so much fun!
links for 2005-06-10 (1)
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“Microsoft has reached a deal with Indonesia over the tens of thousands of pirated versions of Windows programs used in government departments.”
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“A spam campaign that claims Michael Jackson has attempted suicide is being used to lure surfers into infecting their PCs with a Trojan horse.” Be warned.
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“Women who fail to orgasm during sex may be genetically programmed to weed out unreliable men who are a flop between the sheets…”
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Flickr is giving away free buttons and stickers. These three buttons and two stickers can by yours just by sending a Self Addressed Envelope to their address.
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A look into a graphic novel called “A Creationist’s View of Dinosaurs and the Theory of Evolution”. Very bizarre, and amusing at the same time.
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It’s a simple platform game where you avoid the bad guys and collect the gold. Do I really have to tell you how much I suck at this game? No? Good.
Crazy Hot Spring (3)
Summer is not officially here yet, but it already feels like summer. In fact, it feels pretty much like Jakarta (Indonesia) during the dry season. I can’t say that I like it. I hate hot weather. It turns me into Ms. Grumpypants. The heat made me so grumpy a couple of nights ago that Troy decided to buy us a box fan yesterday. We picked up a 20” one. It’s big and awesome! It’s blowing coolish air like there’s no tomorrow. It was also pretty hard to find. They were probably sold out or something. We didn’t find one that was big enough for us until we got to the 5th place, which happened to be a grocery store. When we went to pay for it, the cashier lady said that we were the first to buy a fan on her shift. I don’t know what that was supposed to mean, but I like to think that it means we’re special. Heh.
Speaking of hot weather, I don’t know what had got into us on Sunday but we decided to go for a walk along the trail between Waterloo and Kitchener (a.k.a. the Iron Horse Trail) when it was, like, 30°C out there. Can’t say that I enjoyed it too much. We walked all the way to Victoria Park, watched the ducks for a while before trying to find something to drink. There was an event going on there, apparently organised by the local GLBT community. I thought there would be people selling ice-cream or something there. After all, it was hot and it was an event with a lot of people. In a park. But noooo! No ice-cream seller. Luckily I spotted a small cafe right across the river so I was saved from the horrible fate of dying from dehydration. I had the best iced lemon tea EVER there. But man, was I ever so grumpy. I couldn’t make it back to Waterloo because it was too hot and I was too tired and too grumpy so Troy had to walk back to Waterloo alone to pick up the car and then drove all the way to Kitchener to pick me up. While waiting for him, I sat under the tree by the parking lot of a home hardware store. People were looking at me funny, but whatever. I’m kind of used to that.
The weekend wasn’t entirely unpleasant, though. Saturday was quite fun. We went to several garage sales in Waterloo and then we went to a Rockport factory outlet in St. Jacobs to pick up a pair of new sandals for me (this one, it’s sweet!) before driving to Elmira (where they were having Robin in the Hood festivities), West Montrose (to see the Kissing Bridge), and finally to Guelph where we had a Chinese buffet lunch (evil!), took a walk along the river, and had yummy ice-cream before heading back to Waterloo.
This coming weekend, I’ll be sure to spend a lot of time in a swimming pool. I hope my swimsuit still fits!
Book Meme (1)
Neil passed me this book meme, and while I’m not really an avid book reader, I just thought I’d do it, just for the fun of it. So here goes.
Books owned. I left behind hundreds of books in Indonesia. Here in Canada, assuming that all the books that *I* picked at book sales are *mine* instead of ours (because Troy paid for them), probably less than 30.
Last book I bought. The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd. Troy bought me this book the last time we were in Toronto so technically I didn’t buy it, but whatever. It’s MINE, hands off! Anyway, I still haven’t read it past page 1. Yeah, I know. I suck. But I’ve been distracted by all the travel books on Atlantic-Canada. They’re just so much more fun to read!
Last book I read. The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky, which was pretty interesting and enjoyable. I got it as a gift from a reader, Arno in Germany. He ordered it off my Amazon wishlist (thanks!). Which reminds me, I really should ‘move’ my wishlist from Amazon.com to Amazon.ca.
Five books that mean a lot to me. 1) Looking for Alibrandi by Melina Marchetta. The only book I’d read more than twice. Left it in Indonesia. 2) Shizuko’s Daughter by Kyoko Mori. It’s about a girl trying to cope with her mother’s tragic death. I wish I had this book with me, but I left it in Indonesia. 3) Totto Chan: The Little Girl at the Window by Tetsuko Kuroyanagi. This book is an autobiography. It tells a great story about the author’s childhood and all the amazing people she encountered. Another book I left in Indonesia. 4) Going Solo by Roald Dahl. It’s one of Roald Dahl’s autobiographical books. It tells you about his adventures during the war. I like how he was always able to see the bright side of things. I left my copy in Indonesia, but luckily Troy has his own copy. 5) Being Happy! by Andrew Matthews. I used to think too much. I still do sometimes. This book taught me to lighten up and be happy. It’s one of those self-help books, but this one actually worked and was entertaining at the same time. A friend from university borrowed it from me. I never got it back.
Five individuals to provide their own lists. Jeanna, Sofia, Trish, Kirsi, and Carla, OR the first five people to post a comment on this entry! Yes, it’s yet another pathetic attempt to get some comments. :P
Okay, now I’m off to bed. Night!
links for 2005-06-07 (0)
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“Having an unexciting occupation may increase your risk of a heart attack, believe researchers.” Luckily, I still find web design exciting.
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“Just six minutes of intense exercise a week does as much to improve a person’s fitness as a training regime based on six hours, research has found.”
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Oooh, oooh, we’re supposed to be in Toronto on June 11! We might be able to
participatewatch the parade! Find out if your city is participating. -
“A range of fashion clothing for chickens has been launched by a group of designers working in Austria and Japan.” Why oh why oh why?
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I did 12 but only got 8 right, which I think is not so bad considering I haven’t seen most of the movies I had to guess. This quiz could be addicting!
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This is the most frustrating game ever. All you have to do is click red to pass a level. If you don’t click red, you go back a level. There are 10 levels. Good luck.
links for 2005-06-06 (0)
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“Scientists have found that laughing out loud for 10-15 minutes a day can burn around 10-40 calories, the equivalent of a small piece of chocolate.”
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A human version of the classic arcade game Pacman is being developed by researchers at the Mixed Reality Lab, National University of Singapore.
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Apparently, fast food scents likely to increase road rage potential and other smells — like peppermint — deemed to improve concentration.
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A nifty online tool for setting your browser size while doing Web design. I think it’s better than any browser resizer software. No installation required.
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I know that Microsoft is evil and all, but you’ll never know when these templates would come in handy. Besides, they’re all free for the taking.
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At first, I was really sucking at this game, but then I realised that you could see the shadow of the ball on the tile, and I sucked just a little less.
Rabbit Rabbit! (11)
This is not a post about rabbit. It is said that if the first words you utter on the first day of the month are “rabbit rabbit”, you’ll have good luck all month long.
As I said before, this is not a post about rabbit. I just wanted to share some silly trivias from our wedding:
— I wanted a bagpiper in our wedding, but Troy vetoed the idea;
— We shopped for wedding rings online because jewelry store people scare us;
— I originally bought the skirt I wore at the wedding to wear to the wedding of a friend of Troy’s from university summer last year so it was more or less ‘something old’;
— I wore nothing blue;
— I wanted to wear Troy’s underpants just for the sake of having ‘something borrowed’ but Troy said no;
— My white blouse was something new;
— Troy wore a batik shirt I bought him the last time I was in Indonesia;
— Our reading was from “Oh the Places You’ll Go” by Dr. Seuss;
— We walked down the proverbial aisle to “La Redecouverte” from Amelié OST;
— We stumbled on our vows;
— Troy vowed to take me out for Vietnamese food every week or so and to support my internet addiction;
— I vowed to endure his videogaming habit and morally support his addiction to garage sales, book sales, and thrift stores;
— As a favour, our guests received Polaroid pictures of us and them together, taken with a Polaroid Land 660 camera we got from a garage sale for $3;
— I had red spots all over my arms, legs and face from where the black flies bit me the weekend before the wedding, but concealer did wonders;
— Going bridal shopping alone was depressing;
— My family didn’t know about the wedding until today, thanks to their nearly dysfunctional phone;
— They were calling for a thunderstorm on our wedding day, but thankfully, it didn’t happen;
— Our wedding officiant pronounced my name incorrectly all through the ceremony;
— I designed the wedding program in MS-Word;
— I accidentally smeared lipstick all over the shoulder of my father-in-law’s coat when he was giving me a hug before the wedding;
— Troy picked up the bouquet and my flowery head piece from the flower shop himself, only 45 minutes before the wedding;
— We had two webloggers among our guests, one of whom has posted a glowing review (ha!) of our wedding;
— We saw Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith on our wedding night with a couple of friends, and I kept falling asleep during the first hour;
— Before the movie, we had to stand in a long line outside the cinema in a drizzling rain for at least 20 minutes and I couldn’t help but wonder if it was worth it;
— We’re planning on going to Prince Edward Island and maybe Nova Scotia for our honeymoon sometime in the summer.
I’ll add more to the list if I can think of anything else to add.
Read all entries from May 2005 →