Typically my page views per day hover around the 500-550 mark. If I hit 600-700, that’s a good day. But the morning after I wrote about the Edison Chen sex photos scandal, this was what I woke up to:

Along with the expected visitors from around Asia, I also got visitors from the US, the UK, Australia, Canada, and Europe. I guess I underestimated the number of Chinese people who are actually interested about the news, which first broke about 2 weeks ago. And yet, people are still searching for the photos! Check out these search terms that landed people on my site:

And this was how many times the post was read:

Holy smokes! And the traffic is going to go even higher because Friday isn’t over yet. Now it’s #3 #1 on my list of all-time most popular posts! While the other posts had slowly creep up the list as people read and commented on them, this Edison Chen one got up there in less than 3 days!

It’s so big news that it’s even got CNN talking about it yesterday, which probably caused a lot more people to go google it.

The glorious Internet age eh?

Last Saturday night at Ambar for Kid Kenobi/Malente, I bumped into another stranger who recognised me from my photos and videos of the clubbing events and raves that I have attended in the past two years. We talked for a while and one question he asked stuck with me:

All those photos and videos that you take at these things, how do you have fun?

My answer:

Well, I don’t. Not completely anyway.

This is a question that I have pondered about before – Is blogging cramping my “real life”? The gist is that when I’m worrying about the timing and the positioning of taking good pictures and video, I can’t concentrate on enjoying myself. I’m not getting my money’s worth either. Even my friends have noticed this and they’ve asked me many times to just put the camera away and enjoy myself.

I had persisted with it because quite a few people have recognised me at events and have complimented me on my photos. Most have said to me that it’s great how I helped them remember an excellent day or night out. Plus I usually get a lot of web search hits during the days immediately after the event. All this feeds into the cycle: page views and compliments from strangers make me want to do it, and as I do it even more, the more page views I get and the more strangers recognise and talk to me. It’s a buzz.

But I’ve come to realise that most of the events have taken place at the usual venues, and even I’m bored from taking photos at the same places. So unless it’s a truly special event or at a location that I haven’t shown you guys yet, I’ve decided to put my camera away for the events that I go to this year. We’ll see what happens next year.

I followed that rule for the first event this year – Summadayze, and what d’ya know? I had so much fun.

claudecf @ flickrYou know sometimes I wish people don’t tell me the things that they do because it then becomes something that I have to tell someone, and by extension – blog. In the recent past, unless the secret was truly sensitive or horrible, I didn’t think twice about writing it so long as I left the specifics out of it.

As my readership increases, so does the potential of offending someone because they know someone who knows someone who knows me. Now, it’s not just the stories of friends and family that I sometimes self-censor on, but I am also wary of writing about things that happened to friends of friends, people separated by two or three degrees of separations even. Oh, the things that I could write about if I didn’t give a shit about still having friends who’d willingly talk to me without worrying about me spilling their deepest and darkest secrets.

Being known for blogging is a double-edged sword. I want to be read because I like talking to an audience instead of an empty room. But that also means that I can’t write as freely as I could as before when only a small circle of family and friends knew the existence of this.

It’s frustrating at times when I know it makes for a good story, especially when I’m stuck for material. So it’s with a heavy heart to say that although I’ve been told and have overheard some fairly interesting things lately I can’t tell you any of them. So you’ll just have to make do with this: my mother made me a chicken-mayo sandwich for lunch today, using leftover Nando bits. It was very nice. Spank you very much.

I’ll be in Singapore till the 2nd of January, 2008. While I’m there, I will be meeting up with friends old and new, going out partying and drinking, and eating lotsa yummy food so I should have lotsa pictures to show and stories to tell.

Blogging may or may not be sporadic … ah heck, who am I kidding?! Of course I’ll be blogging! The best way to know when I’ve updated is to create yourself a feed reader account (Bloglines or Google Reader) and subscribe to my RSS feed.

If that is too much hassle, you can also receive my updates via email.

scol22 @ stock.xchng

Writing here has not only been a creative outlet for me but it’s also how I deal with things that I feel strongly about. For example, the stuff about irrational jealousy and my grandmother. The first has lost me a friend but I have yet to hear anything about the second. Though my father has mentioned perhaps I should not have posted it, even if most of the family knows that I did not make up anything in what I wrote.

Amongst people whom I know in real life, I think that I’m the most comfortable with laying my life bare online. And sometimes it’s easy to forget that not everyone in my life is as comfortable with that as I am. My skin is probably too thick for my own good. I may not care what people think of me, especially people that I don’t care for, but others care about how they are perceived and I should be more sensitive to that.

When blogging crashes into real life, I would definitely choose real life over it. An online life can be great but not when it is detrimental to the real. Over the past two years, I believe that I have allowed the fine line between what’s bloggable and what’s not to blur, especially where it concerns the people in my life. To friends and family who I may have caused trouble for, I sincerely apologise.

Self-censorship will be tricky but it looks like it’s gonna be a necessity. All of us being so interconnected by technology, we don’t know whose path we may cross now or in the future. I may throw myself at the mercy of the Internet gods, but from hereon I promise not to drag you down with me.

Because of blogging:

1. I use my phone to jot down any and all random ideas that pop into my head throughout the day, even when I’m sitting on the toilet. Even when I am just about to fall asleep.
2. I bought a digital camera, and started seeing everything in camera angles. I started to fantasise if only my eyes were cameras, then I could capture it all.
3. I sometimes take photos before I do, say or eat anything. It weirds people out.
4. I discovered that my blogging hobby could earn a little bit of money. I used that money to buy more toys to support the hobby.
5. On some days I get writer’s block and then I wonder why am I worried about having something to post? And I think, “is blogging cramping my real life?“
6. I’ve argued with total strangers online and thought, “Geesus, this is so freaking pointless!”
7. I’ve lost a friend.
8. I got overly obsessed with stats, and ranking in things that don’t matter. I’ve got readers who use RSS to keep up with me (subscribe now!), readers who link to me and click through to me, and readers who simply bookmarked me or type in my address into the browser. They are the ones that matter, and the fact that they keep coming back is what keeps me going. Good for me, good for you.
9. I’ve had readers who don’t comment but who email to let me know that they really enjoy reading me. One even said that I’ve touched and inspired him in his life (hi VU!). He may be the only one who’s ever said that to me, but that’s probably what makes it so awesome.
10. I’ve met people whom I wouldn’t have met otherwise – you see them on the top commentators list and on my blogroll. You guys are tops. And I’m still meeting new bloggers and commentators today. Blogging enriches my life to no end.
11. 90% of my online reading consists of other blogs. The only non-blogs I read are tech and news sites.
12. I comment all over the place and lose track of them.
13. I’ve learnt how to be my own worst critic. But also a pretty darn good editor at the same time. *cough*
14. I’ve had random strangers recognise me through my photos and videos. It always give me a buzz.
15. I’ve learnt to approach strangers and talk to them. And then I take their photos.
16. Family and friends know what I’m up to without me telling them. I’m lazy that way. “Read my blog!”
17. I’ve been more honest with myself than I would ever have been. But at times, I hold myself back from being too honest.
18. I’ve fantasised about doing this full time, travelling and covering clubbing events around the world and become a world-famous roving reporter of the dance music scene. And maybe get on MTV, E, V or VH1. That’d be mad. Ok, I’ll settle for just Australia.
19. I’ve got a creative outlet. It makes me feel good because I’m not creative in any other way.
20. I’m creating a living history for my family. If I ever marry and have kids, I think they’d get a kick out of it. Just like how I would if my parents had blogs.

inthemix is a site dedicated to the reporting of the dance and electronic music scene, the personalities and the events happening inside and out of Australia. I just stumbled across one of my clips from last year’s Godskitchen event being featured in their “Full Coverage” page for this year’s GK show, which I will be going to.

Here’s how they described the clip.

We came across this clip on YouTube from last year’s Perth date of the Godskitchen tour. Check it out if you’d like to see a rather ‘excited’ clubber at 6am (“I’m still awake because I took something illegal… shhh!”), footage from headliners Eddie Halliwell, Above and Beyond and Cosmic Gate, and the venue being evacuated after a fire alarm was set off!

Have a safe time partying this weekend!