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!

Nietzsche said, “That which does not kill us makes us stronger”.
(Pic via Dirty Scottsdale)

Would the re-telling of an embarrassing story to people who were not there or who were not involved, and whom the person in question will never ever cross paths with, be something for the person to get angry about?

All of us have embarrassing things happen to us and if we worry about what everyone who know about them would think about us, even if those people are strangers who don’t matter, then we’d all go insane.

I’m saying the above because some friends who know I blog have now gotten into the habit of adding this precursor to the conversations we have:

“You’re not going to blog this, right?”

I will honour their requests most of the time of course. Though if I start to hear the same story being told to me by other people then I’m gonna blog it, especially if I find it funny.

My thinking is this: if I don’t mention name or specifics, and if I don’t post a picture like the friends of the poor guy above did, then it’s just gonna be you and whoever else you tell the story to who’d recognise the story upon reading it. Why should you care what the rest, who would be random strangers think? Plus if you are so embarrassed about it, you wouldn’t be spreading the story yourself right?

To those of you who blog, have you ever gotten such a request for blogging discretion? And do you find it annoying that your friends now think of you as paparazzi just because you blog?

I had thought about doing a navel gazing post, a straight and dry diary-type entry about what I did on the weekend.

I could tell you about how I lost the ticket to DJ Hyper’s show on Friday night at Ambar, how I drove into the city during Friday lunch to get another ticket, and how the show ended up disappointing, and how Simon, Lydia and I left early.

I could tell you that how a system administrator’s job is like a fireman’s - when there’s no fire, it’s actually very mind-numbing. But there was such a fire on Friday when we lost connection to ALL our production servers, those that serve customers and their applications. I could tell you that I drove to our data-centre through peak-hour traffic in the city around 4pm. I could tell you how I spent 2.5 hours in the data-centre trying to work out the kinks, listening to the drone of hundreds of computers whilst catching glimpses of smiling office types walking to the nearest pub.

I also could tell you that I had to go into the office on Saturday to finish off what I was doing Friday afternoon before I had to rush away to our ailing servers. Yeah Friday was a total drag on the start of the weekend which was only salvaged by copious drinking and Anne Savage at The Rise.

So yeah, I could have done a navel gazing post but I remembered - only pretty female bloggers can do that.

I came to that conclusion based on the search-engine traffic to my posts about Dawn Yang and Daphne Teo - two female Singaporean bloggers whose entries are light and fluffy like cotton-candy. Though they must be doing some things right to get insane traffic and to continually get people to search for them on the Internet right?

I mean I haven’t written about them for a while and I’m still getting daily traffic to these posts below, listed in chronological order. And yes, this is a cynical ploy to hook in more traffic.

Daphne Teo

• Daphne Teo who?!
• Less Tammy, more Daphne
• What’s the deal with Daphne Teo?

Dawn Yang

• Singaporean blogosphere belies size of nation
• I heart Dawn Yang
• Dawn Yang confronts those rumours

Steph of “Much Ado About Sumthin!” fame has just written her 400th post. To celebrate, she posted a mass-orgy of mutual-congratulation and back-patting, ie. a “circlejerk” and sent out massive link love to all 112 bloggers on her blogroll.

400th Post! It’s A Circlejerk Partay!!

To wit,

My blogroll is a snapshot of the people in the sphere that have affected me in some way, and made me keep coming back to visit again and again. They’re people who I would love to shag or at the very least stick my tongue so far down their throat I could lick their intestines. FACT.

This is my salute to them.

P.S I lurk on many, many other blogs, and it doesn’t mean I don’t want to violate or feel you up inappropriately if you’re not mentioned.

Let me pause for a moment to look at the picture above and fantasise a little. Be back in ten …

*wipe wipe* *flush*

So she said this about me,

Mooiness- One of the most popular Aussie blogs and for very good reason. He writes about everything and anything and always puts his own unique twist on the topic. He’ll make you laugh and make you think. I think he’s awesome.

Steph, you are way more awesome. I think her blog deserves the praise “one of the most popular Aussie blogs” more than mine. As I’ve said when I first discovered her blog,

I think hers would be Australia’s most visited blog outside of those hosted by the Sydney Morning Herald, judging by the number of comments that she gets.

Heheh. As Steph said, this has been one big circlejerk.

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Steph may not realise it but her post is an excellent example of what’s called “linkbaiting” in the SEO world, or search-engine optimisation. The object of linkbaiting is to get as many incoming links to your site as possible, so that search engines would think that your site is popular and relevant, and hence rank you higher in their search results. It’s also good for advert-pricing if she ever choose to do it, and for bragging rights, like on Technorati for example.

By doing a single post linking out to over a hundred other blogs, Steph is almost guaranteed to get all those blogs linking back to her. Why? Self-satisfied wankers like myself like to point to another person’s profuse praise to validate themselves. Me love Steph long time!

where the magic happens

Blogging has been real good for me. It started out as a creative outlet way back when, then I met and got to know other bloggers, some of whom have become real life friends. And as mentioned in my latest podcast, blog advertising has also given me a nice little side income.

And this is the latest toy that I’ve bought with that side income: an LG 20″ widescreen monitor, $299. This is on top of the camera I bought in May for $399 - a Panasonic Lumix DMC-LZ7.

The ironic thing is, if I wasn’t a blogger I could have made do with my older camera, and if I wasn’t spending so much time in front of the computer, I would not have been tempted to upgrade the monitor.

Oh well, never mind. I’m now working towards the funds for my end of year holiday.

In one episode of “Extras“, Ricky Gervais’ character Andy is trying to avoid hanging out with a fellow extra who is very boring. But the other guy can’t take the hint and kept on pestering Andy, until Andy finally told him off in a very funny scene, “Look! I just don’t like you ok?!”

Asking for links is a bit like that. If you have to ask for it, don’t be surprised if the result isn’t favourable. It might even annoy the other blogger if you persist and ask, “Why not?” This is something which Steph has mentioned before:

The other thing that’s pissing me off is the whole blogroll drama. My blogroll is not static. It changes regularly as I find new blogs or move on from others and I don’t do link exchanges.

I’ve been de-linked and had “regular” commentaters leave, what’s the big deal?

I don’t get it. If you really must email me about this or make a snide comment on your blog about it, go ahead. I hope it makes you feel better.

So if you shouldn’t ask for it, how do you get people to link to you? In my experience, there’s only three good ways to go about it: leaving compelling comments on other blogs, be generous with the link love and writing good content.

Leave Compelling Comments

Lilian, a Malaysian pro-blogger wrote in a post about “how to increase traffic“:

You see, in order for people to like you, you have to show a sincere interest first. Otherwise, no one is going to visit.
We cannot rely on people visiting us. We have to visit them. Unless you are some Hollywood celebrities(sic).

To get other bloggers to notice you, you should leave intelligent and relevant comments on the blogs that you read. By leaving good comments, you are not only inviting the bloggers to visit you, but also their readers. However don’t spam their comments section, and don’t be a sycophant or a creep.

Related to this is to reply to the comments that you get. It makes people feel warm and welcomed and they might just link to you without you even have to ask.

For a good example of how this worked out for me, read Mili describe how she stumbled onto my blog.

Be Generous With Your Link Love

The bloggers who you link to will know about you, either through the automatic trackback system or through vanity searches on Technorati. For me, it gives me a buzz and I will visit everyone who links to me. If I like your stuff, you either go on my blogroll or I would subscribe for further reading.

Don’t link expecting a link back. Be generous about it. It’s a percentage game - some will inevitably link back to you in one way or the other, either on their blogrolls or in the next post that they write. But some won’t, so don’t be bitter about it. Instead, just keep on finding great blogs to read and to link to.

Linking is a great technique if used well, but don’t be like Dave Lucas. I’m not going to link to him because I find him dubious, so go Google his ass. Why do I find him dubious? It’s because he never fails to link to or mention Xiaxue no matter how tenuous the relevance to his post subject is. Why, I do not know. Maybe the guy has yellow-fever. And what does he get for his efforts? Xiaxue has never mentioned him whatsoever. So don’t do it blatantly and without purpose because the subject of your link love will see right through it.

Hook Them In With Great Content

Before we even talk about your content, there are some prerequisites - your spelling, grammar and composition skills must be up to scratch. You gain all that by lots of reading. Blogs, magazines, novels, and even that great billboard ad that held your attention for more than 2 seconds. Notice the way the words are composed, and how the sentences flow. Some great writers are born, but most have to learn it. And luckily for the rest of us plebs, great writing is very easy to find and hence learn from. For example, check out Copyblogger.com.

Two ways to great content:

1. Write kickass posts. How? If you are naturally funny, this is easy. Otherwise, identify an area of expertise that you can talk about effortlessly and write about it. Come up with an original thought, do your research, quote from someone else’s kickass post (see: giving out link love above), have a cool photo or graphic to go with it, and string it all together into one coherent piece.

   Consistently writing kickass posts is hard and takes a lot of effort. Some do it better than others and almost effortlessly. I’m not one of those writers. So what I do instead is …

2. Put your personal spin on it. I put a lot of my personality into my stories, and even into the newsy posts or those linking to stuff that I find interesting on the net. As a reader, I like knowing the blogger whom I’m reading. Good writers are those who put a personal spin on mundane stuff that happen to all of us. What makes us different is how we react to the same situations. Though it maybe the same shit on a different day, but if it happened to a different person in a different place it can be interesting. This is why the majority of blogs that I’ve subscribed to are personal blogs - 98 out of 132 feeds.

   So don’t be afraid to “expose” yourself a little. How far you go is entirely up to you. Think of what you are comfortable telling a complete stranger without being afraid of it being repeated elsewhere, and you’ve set yourself the boundaries.

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I have been lucky to be linked to by quite a few bloggers, some of whom are quite well known and I would always love to get more. And content, whether on this blog or in the comments that I’d leave on other blogs, is still king.