A few months back, I don’t know exactly when, I’d settled into a routine whereby I have a post written and published everyday between 7-9pm. It was comfortable and it was a good way to pace myself. I remember a period in time, I think from August ’05 till January ’06 where I’d write more than once a day. And it was becoming unsustainable.

Once a day is perfect. Somedays I’d get inspiration for multiple posts which I’d write in advance and then scheduled them to be published later. However, writer’s block still happens from time to time. On average, I’d say it happens to me maybe twice a month. It is inevitable. No one can be inspired all the time. This is the downside of being a personal blogger – when my life is stable and uneventful, which is really good by the way, I won’t have much to write about.

When the block happens, I’d be sitting down in front of the computer straining to figure out what to write and nothing would come out. Or I’d dismiss any ideas that would popped into my head as being lame. Like when you can’t sleep, you shouldn’t just toss and turn wondering why you can’t get to sleep. I’d get up and walk around the house, switched on the TV, look at some junk mail or even flip through the Ikea catalogue. Hah!

Sometimes I’d go play with Snoop, or go stand under the sun. And sometimes the ideas come when I’m not thinking about writing. Like when I’m driving, in the shower, or sitting on the toilet. Or whilst listening to thumping music in a club. Or having lunch by myself during a work day. And sometimes and I’m not encouraging it, ideas would flood in when I’m slightly tipsy or when I’m high on caffeine or on cold medicine.

Why am I telling you all this once more? Well I’m having a writer’s block today and I didn’t want this to be just another filler post. So with the above, I’m gonna also leave you two great links that I’ve found about writer’s block. By sharing the way I deal with writer’s block, I hope it would help my fellow bloggers out there who read this.

If you have tips on how you deal with writer’s block, please share it here too.

p.s. This was also another exercise in deep-linking to my own posts – ostentatiously for the benefit of my newer readers. *ahem*

Writing Hacks, Part 1: Starting – scottberkun.com
10 Killer Post Ideas | Performancing.com

There’s a bunch of great editorial cartoons over at MSNBC, illustrating the recent events surrounding the Pope’s speech in Germany and the reactions of Muslims around the world. I can’t reproduce the images here so I’ll just quote two of my favourites of the lot:

Scene: Pope apologising

Pope saying: In my recent speech, I quoted a 14th century emperor opining that Islam was violent and inhumane.
Pope saying: I’m sorry I said that.
Pope (in thought bubble): I should’ve said that it still *is* violent and inhumane.

Scene: A bunch of aliens hovering over the planet

Alien: As near as I can tell, they are fighting over which religion is more peaceful!

Zing!

The rest of the collection are at Daryl Cagle’s Professional Cartoonists Index.

Technorati Tags: religion, Islam, Pope Benedict

Brief announcement: due to me tinkering around with my blog’s spam-filter, a few of you who have Blogspot blogs have had your comments classified as spam and I did not see them until this morning when I went through the filtered spam.

I’ve recovered all of your comments and I have responded to them all. So if you posted a comment these past two days, please check out the posts and my responses again. Thanks and apologies!

All’s well ends well. Back to normal programming.

The other day, I was reminiscing about my school days in Malaysia with a colleague who also grew up in KL. Although she was almost 10 years younger than me, we shared a lot of funny memories about being a kid back in 80s Malaysia.

We especially laughed about our miniscule pocket money and how it affected our behaviour. To give you an idea, I was given RM3 per school day for lunch and I don’t get any extra for the weekend or to buy stuff. It is a reason why us Chinese kids especially look forward to Chinese New Year for the sudden windfall of cash from the red packets, or angpows.

Food

So, typically a lunch at school would cost RM3 if you get a bowl of noodles or a plate of rice, plus a drink. In order to save, sometimes I’d forgo the drink and get water from the tap. That way I’d end up saving maybe RM1. Kids who got more than RM3 were considered the “rich” kids. Those were the kids who can get a bowl or plate of hot food, a drink *and* a pack of chips. A pack of chips was the epitome of the good life to me then.

Usually us poorer and hungrier kids would like the rich ones to be our friends. But you gotta get the generous ones who’d dole out the potato chips like it was nothing to them. Not surprisingly, they were also the ones who were popular. Sometimes we would be quite mean where even if we don’t like the person, we’d still scum his food. Ah, kids.

“Rubbers”

The other thing that obsessed every kid were our pencil erasers, or “rubbers” (hee hee). There’s an unspoken rule about using another person’s “rubber” (hee hee, oh behave!) – you only use the corner that has been used before. That is, you don’t simply go and rub away on a pristine corner. Why? Because! I don’t wanna lend you my rubber anymore!

Yes we hate kids who’d break this rule. We used our meagre money to buy a good rubber (this one rubs faster! No! Mine is faster!) so we look after it like it was gold. We’d like to preserve its newness for as long as possible. And we don’t like to see it all grunged up. Worse still if you rub off too much of it. Rubbers cost money yo!

Cassette Tapes

The bestest tape that I bought!

Back in the 80s, an original cassette tape cost RM12. So to buy one would mean that I’d have to forgo a drink during lunch for a little more than two weeks. Either that or I eat kacang putih as lunch and save up quicker. Buying a tape required some sacrifices.

In those days, you’d hear a good single on the radio or catch the clip on “America’s Top 10 with Casey Kasem“. You got psyched up and you started to scrimp and save to buy the album. Clutching your money, you walk into the music shop and hand over your entire savings. You go home and put it in the player and the worst thing that could happen is: the single is the only good song on the tape! Wah, you wanna cry man.

Walkman and batteries

The Walkman was the must-have accessory for a kid in the 80s. Usually you only got one because you blew your angpow money on it, or it was given to you as a gift. But you’d still need batteries to run it and those cost money. So the thing that you’d hate most is a buddy borrowing your Walkman to listen to that tape that you had starved for, and rewinding and fast-forwarding through the tape to listen to the one and only good song on it over and over again!

Wei! Don’t waste my battery lah! Wei! Finish oredi or not!? Come on lah! Give it back! I don’t friend you anymore har!

Ah fun times. Heh. If you grew up in the 80s too, how did you remember it?

Technorati Tags: 80s, eighties, Malaysia, Malaysian

My most emotionally satisfying relationship was with a woman whom, despite the strong emotional connection, I did not have sex with. And it lasted a mere 6 weeks.

I met her at Metro like how I met a lot of other women. Heh. I couldn’t remember how but I happened to be there by myself. In walked a bunch of people whom I know, and she was with them. Straight away there was a connection between her and I because we just started talking like we’ve known each other for a long time.

She was visiting from Thailand and she was going to be here for 6 weeks. As soon as I realise that she was only here for the short term, I zoned out right away. Must have been a reflex action to prevent myself from getting hurt. However, that didn’t stop us from really enjoying each other’s company.

Over the next few weeks, we’d see each other 2-3 times a week. We’d have dinner and drinks, and we’d go clubbing. We exchanged gifts and did small errands for each other. People did mistake us for being a couple because if you cancel out the sex, that’s what couples mostly do right?

Wong Kar Wai’s “In The Mood For Love”

I would find out that she’s from a rich family and her father was a general in the Thai army. They have a big holiday home here and she drives a nice car. I even fantasised about being her gigolo – that’s how rich they were. But the great thing about her was that she didn’t have an air of arrogance or privilege. It just felt so easy being around her, and it felt very good.

In hindsight, I wonder if the reason that I think the relationship to be emotionally satisfying was because it felt so easy? Neither of us were looking for a relationship, and we were just enjoying the time that fate had given us. 6 weeks is nothing in the bigger picture. At the time it felt too short but simultaneously it felt so fulfilling.

Was I in love and didn’t know it? Hmm, I wonder.

Technorati Tags: single life, relationships

This was written as part of the latest Problogger Group Writing Project.

So you’ve just started reading blogs and you’ve found a few good ones. You check on them daily to see if they’ve updated. You bookmark them on your browser or you type in the URL directly. Then, you find more and more good blogs. And you click on them in your bookmarks everyday, sometimes twice a day just to go to their sites. Hey it’s a good way to kill time right?

Gradually, checking everyone of them daily begins to feel like a grind. And when they don’t update as compulsively-obsessively-frequently as you check on them, you start to feel resentment. Update, godammit!

I’m here to tell you that there is a better way, and that RSS feeds are your friend. Most blog software publishes an RSS feed. This feed gets updated when the blog is updated. However, the feed on its own is useless – you need an RSS feed reader that will check the freshness of these feeds, and then only display those that have been updated.

My preferred choice is Bloglines. There’s also Newsgator and both work similarly. I picked Bloglines because I preferred the site’s look and feel, plus it provides a little notifier that beeps when you’ve got new posts to read. It gives me joy everytime I hear it, I swear it does.

Once you’ve created an account, and you’ve downloaded the notifier you are on your way to becoming a super blog stalker. Even if you are using someone else’s computer and there’s no notifier, you only have to log onto Bloglines and know immediately which of your favourite blogs have been updated.

Your favourite blogger can stop blogging for a while and you’d still know about it as soon as they’ve resurfaced. And you didn’t even have to keep checking their blog everyday to know. Now that’s efficiency.

If your favourite blogger is generous *ahem*, he or she will publish full feeds. That means that you can read the entire post via Bloglines. Some bloggers publish partial feeds and make you go to their sites to read the whole thing.

Me? I don’t care how you read it, as long as you read it. That’s why I will always publish full feeds. Besides you would still have to come here to comment. You do comment, right?

Moreover, by going to a site the old-school way you can see all the hardwork that goes into the site design and post layout. Plus you get to see the goodies on the sidebar. Basically you’d see the site the way the blog author had intended you to see it.

There’s also another quick and dirty way to use RSS feeds and that is via Firefox’s Live Bookmarks (Opera, Safari, Netscape and soon IE7 have similar functions). Whenever you go to a site that publishes an RSS feed, you’d see an orange RSS icon in the address bar. Click on it to add the site’s feed as a live bookmark.

What’s a live bookmark? It’s a bookmark that updates itself with new links as they happen. Try it!

Be like the paparazzi. Now go forth and stalk. Your favourite bloggers want you to, nay, expect you to. And by the way, my Bloglines subscription button is right there on the front page. Do it. Do it now. You know you want to.

p.s. Did you know that there are also feeds for the comments? Did that just spin you out?

ADDED 11:42am
Yvonne suggested that I enable an email subscription plugin for the comments, which I’ve now done. You’d see this function on quite a few blogs out there too. I’ve never saw a need for it because there’s already an RSS feed for the comments (see front page sidebar). This allows you to be even more specific with your stalking I guess. The option is entirely up to you!

ADDED 22nd Sept 2006 4:37PM
A fellow participant on the Problogger Group Writing Project goes a little more in depth into the wonders of RSS. And she has better pictures too. Check it out!

There’s currently a proposal to have formal citizenship tests for would-be Australian citizens. While I’m all for encouraging the learning of English and making its competence a requirement, I’m a bit ambivalent about the so-called “values” side of the tests. It’s all very vague.

Australian citizenship discussion paper – National – smh.com.au
‘Fair go’ for immigrants – National – smh.com.au

Yvonne had done a humourous take of it:

Cricket is: (a) A sport the English will never kick our asses in. (b) An insect.

While Jack Marx @SMH did a piece about the misconceptions on what constitutes the Australian “identity”:

Forced Australianisms, either here or abroad, are ugly, and entirely at odds with the “laid-back” and “carefree” image many of us would like to believe Australians are famous for. A more desirable and honest idea might be to just let our character happen, rather than searching for it, commodifying it, boasting it up with neon lights to the sounds of that bloody Down Under (just think, for a moment, what we’d make of Italians if they thundered Shaddap You Face every time they won a race).

I’ve attempted to quantify what is Australian by using the rudimentary list of people and things below that are commonly identified with Australia, and by rating how “Aussie” they are.

My rating system is thus:

• true-blue you beaut = 100% Aussie
• expat = born and raised in Australia but now no longer here; or foreign-owned
• reverse expat = foreign origin, embraced to be “ours”; has become entrenched in Aussie culture

So let’s have a go shall we? I’m sure there’ll be a surprise or two which will challenge your initial beliefs about something or someone on the list.

People

Naomi Watts

• Eric Bana – actor, born in Melbourne, true-blue you beaut
• Cate Blanchett – actress, born in Melbourne, true-blue you beaut
• Victor Chang – prominent Sydney heart surgeon who was murdered, born in Shanghai, reverse expat
• Russell Crowe – actor, born in New Zealand, reverse expat
• Mel Gibson – actor, born in New York, reverse expat turned expat
• Steve Irwin – born in Victoria, true-blue you beaut
• Olivia Newton John – actress/singer, born in England, reverse expat turned expat
• Nicole Kidman – actress, born in Hawaii, reverse expat
• Rupert Murdoch – media mogul (King of the World! Really!), expat
• Jack Wong Sue – World War 2 hero, true-blue you beaut
• Geoffrey Rush – actor, born in Queensland, true-blue you beaut
• Naomi Watts – actress, born in England, reverse expat
• Hugo Weaving – actor, born in South Africa, reverse expat

More famous Australians in Wikipedia.

Things

• Ford Falcon – automobile, reverse expat. Owner: the Ford Motor Corporation of the USA.
• Holden Commodore – automobile, true-blue you beaut turned expat. Owner: General Motors Corporation of the USA.
• Ugg boots – fashion (?) item, true-blue you beaut.
• Utes – type of automobile, true-blue you beaut.

Sports

• Australian Rules Football – true-blue you beaut
• Cricket – reverse expat
• Rugby – reverse expat

Food

The Tim Tam Slam

• Hungry Jacks – BK in the rest of the world, reverse expat
• Arnotts, maker of Tim Tams and Iced Vovos – true-blue you beaut turned expat. Bought by the Campbell Soup Company of the USA in 2001.
• Kit Kat – chocolate bar, reverse expat. Owner: various around the world, Nestle in Australia.
• Mars Bar / Snickers – chocolate bar, reverse expat. Owner: Mars Incorporated of the USA.
• Meat Pies – reverse expat.
• Sausage Rolls – reverse expat.
• Vegemite – true-blue you beaut turned expat. Owner: Kraft Foods of the USA.

I didn’t include such obvious Australiana as kangaroos, koalas, boomerangs and the Aboriginal people because to do so would skew my entire rating system. They are the 100% “true-blue you beaut” Aussies, and everyone and everything else would be “reverse expats”. Which if you think about it, is really the truth isn’t it?

So how Aussie are you?

ADDED 8:33PM
Dominc Knight weighs in too.

Technorati Tags: Aussie, Australian, Australia