100 Days

“I write down everything I want to remember.
That way, instead of spending a lot of time trying to remember what it is I wrote down,
I spend the time looking for the paper I wrote it down on.”
- Beryl Pfizer

Today marks the hundredth day of my blogging. What could be the significant changes? Did blogging make me a better person? Or have I helped change the world?

I can say that blogging has been an enriching experience. If there is one thing that I learned in the blogosphere, it would be about engagement. Writing an entry has always been about engaging the readers. It is not about simply expressing plain narcissistic idiosyncrasies though I must admit that there are gifted bloggers who can do this. They can write about what bothers them or about their obsessions and readers love them anyway. This may be because they write with the reader in mind. The goal therefore of blogging is always to converse with the readers. And even if you don't have any readers, write anyway or pretend like you have one. Because firstly, that entry will undeniably be read someday somehow. Secondly, because blogging is not just about conversing but about coming up with something brighter as well. There is joy in the event of a challenge because you are driven to be at your best.

As with the technical changes, the blog template has been altered about three times. The layout was arranged on several occasions. About the posts, I've made about 50 already which means that I usually post once in two days. Then about the visitors, sitemeter tracked about 1,150 of them. And let's just speculate that 300 of them would be me since I set my blog as my browser homepage. So instead of yahoo mail, or google search, or the apple homepage, I frequently see my blog everytime I surf. Which finally leads us to the great thing about blogging - the technorati ranking. As of this moment, my blog currently looks like this:

Out of the million blogs, it's already something to be ranked as one of the first two or three hundred thousand blogs. Anyway, as an additional, here is an interesting report of google analytics on the traffic of my blog. It only started April since it was only at that time that I was able to install the tool.
Furthermore, in terms of achieving something in that span of hundred days, a sponsor has already asked me to write some reviews about some stuffs though I didn't have the time yet to do it. Also, I'm quite flattered and honored to be included in the top ten emerging influential blogs of the shaman. As to the feat of changing the world, I think that it's important that I know first what the world needs. And blogging is one way of doing it.

I guess what I'm trying to say here is that a lot could happen in those hundred days of blogging. My advice: if you don't have a blog yet, start one.

Interconnectedness

Just to satisfy my curiosity, I'm indulging myself in this little gimmick on self promotion.

———copy and paste the Viralink and instructions below this line———

Below is a matrix of 120 stars, I have already added a link to my blog onto one of the stars, all you need to do is copy and paste the grid into your blog and add your own link to one of the other spare stars, and tell others to do the same!

Viralink

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New Addition: When I receive a ping back once you have added the Viralink to your site I will add your link to this grid, and each person who copies the grid from here will also link to your site!

———copy and paste the Viralink and instructions above this line———

Let's see what happens next.

Lemon Ink

When fate hands you a lemon, make lemonade.

- Dale Carnegie

A friend has a very remarkable blog called the Lemon Ink.

I was quite surprised at first to see that the blog was blank I thought it must be a splog. I tried saying "I solemnly swear that I am up to no good!" but I guess I was just in the illusion that I was looking at the Marauder's Blog. I even tried saying, "Mirror, mirror on the wall, who's the fairest of them all?" But I realized a blog is not a mirror and even if it is, the blog would only respond "You are" had I been Snow White.

Anyway, it took my low IQ quite a while to figure out that highlighting the blog makes everything appear. I thought my friend must be doing something incorrect so I pointed out to him his error.

But it turned out that I wasn't able to let my ignorance get in the way of expressing my opinion. He pointed me instead to the invisible ink.

Readers may have some difficulties with his blog but it's his. And I think that the invisible ink is quite a clever statement.

Taking a Break

My blogging has been as frequent as my asking my sister where the tv remote is. To give way to other important priorities like taking comprehensive exams, I have to give up blogging for a while.

Even my asking where the remote control is.

And wish me luck!

Looking For a New Project?

Try raising your eyebrows separately.

Or twisting your tongue.

Or wiggling your ears.

Or better yet, try looking at the 43 things that you could do.

A Game of Tag and Why I Blog

If I tell you that I'm disregarding this game of tag because I don't care about my Technorati ranking, that would be a lie my friend. Because even the world of blogging is governed by the economic concept of selfish interest. As Adam Smith put in his Wealth of Nations, "It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest." This game of tag is a classic example of people benefiting because of the want of others to be benefited.

So here's how the tagging game is played.

First, link back to the person who tagged you. Say for instance, "My friend the AnitoKid tagged me!" Then proceed by linking as well the person who tagged the person who tagged you. "My friend AnitoKid was tagged by Blog to Profit."

Secondly, to make life exciting and because people are always almost interested in the philosophical why, list five reasons as to why you blog. Take the following examples.

1. I blog because I want to learn what the world needs. This way, I would eventually know what I would give to it.

2. I blog because I want you to listen to what I have to say. It may be what you are looking for. If not, find another blogger. There are millions of us out there.

3. I blog to pursue happiness or joy. How? Thru these equations or simple syllogism:

tags = higher blog authority,

higher blog authority = higher technorati ranking,

higher technorati ranking = ego boosted

4. I blog to know people and build relationships before I need one. As Susan Roane says, "It's not what you know or who you know, but who knows you."

5. Finally, borrowing from the book Timepiece, I blog to escape the certainty of oblivion...that some unborn generation may know I, or even we, once loved, hated, worried, and laughed.

Then last step, tag another five bloggers then comment on their posts to let them know you tagged them.

The Busy Indolent

Entanglement of All Sorts

Umaantabay

Imperial Blog

CZhaye's Grafitti

* I think this is my first post with a rhyming title.

Salt Shakers

I previously posted about Seth Godin's terrific nose. As with his post on stinkless durian, I don't quite agree with what he thinks. This is because I still have a durian problem much as I am not a durian eater. Some members of my family though are durian eaters that is why I know the stench of a durian. Perhaps those whom Seth Godin regards as non-consumers must be those who have not heard or seen the durian at all.

Anyway, my tita is very imaginative for tackling the issue on why people only have two nose holes. Nel of Pinoy Big Brother believes that if ever one hole gets clogged, people will still have a spare hole. My tita on the other hand believes that having more than two nose holes would be a disaster because our noses would then look like salt shakers.

Some Valid Issues

A friend is an admirable augur for anticipating a valid issue.

Recently, two of her guy New Yorker friends walked her home past midnight to her place at Makati Avenue. As she watched them leave, one of them hailed goodbye from the cab shouting, "Thanks for the great night!"

Just imagine how that would look like to local and foreigner bystanders. It is almost such a big bowl of wrong when two white gentlemen walk home a friend who is "tan and almost gusgusin girl" and is living at a red light district.

Of course, it is quite unfair as well or even discriminating for those guys if they are not able to exercise their gentlemanly behavior of seeing a friend safe for the night just because of some misperceptions.

What can I say? Il est difficile mais c'est la vie!

Man in the Mirror

I'm starting with the man in the mirror.

I'm asking him to change his ways.

And no message could have been any clearer,

If you wanna make the world a better place.

- Michael Jackson

I made a post on narcissurfing previously.

But a friend has a smarter way of doing it. Google this: "(Your name) likes to". Include the qoutation marks.

Here are the results for mine. I kind'a like this name better than the other one.

1. Michael likes to work with people and is very good in math.
2. Michael likes to sing, play the drums, and write his own songs.
3. Michael likes to work with ideas.
4. Michael likes to be around people.
5. When meeting women, Michael likes to tell them that he's Chinese, as a sort of "intelligence test".
6. In his spare time Michael likes to spend time with girls.
7. Michael likes to take a stuffed animal dog around with him because "someone special" gave it to him.
8. Michael likes to get up in Heidi's face and touch her nose or put his palm on her head.
9. When he's not working, Michael likes to spend time with his dogs, Graycie and Clifford

And lastly,

10. In his spare time, Michael likes to nap.

Well, the list really says something about me, except the math and some others.

Hhmm....

Pointer and Pata

3x+y points us to the pointer.

Meanwhile, I found a blog of one of the APO. I was able to attend one of his lectures before at school about environment and interconnectedness. The topics were part of the curriculum of a fascinating subject, Science and Society.

Anyway I find his post on King Leonidas's pata really funny.

The Hemline Theory of Writing

There is so much truth in what Seth Godin plucked.

I remember someone saying that a writing, or something like a speech or even a sermon, should be like a miniskirt. Short enough to attract people while long enough to cover the essentials.

Some Lessons on Dieting

There's something to be learned about dieting. And it's not just about an abstruse concept called discipline. It's not even about a nonconcrete idea on endurance.

The point is that any concept or idea should be narrowed down into tangible real stuff. We take for instance endurance. Endurance itself is an intangible thought. Endurance of what? Whose endurance? It's simply something that can't be executed.

But at least not yet.

If we say "My endurance not to eat the delicious ice cream in front of me," then that my friend would be something that we call as tangible real stuff. Something that we can learn from dieting. But it doesn't end there because the most important question about dieting is not just about the word "what" but about the word "how" as well.

Here are some simple things of the "how" part. Thanks to Guy Kawasaki's ideas.

Always create a context where you can provide yourself with options. You may have heard that for those who are having a hard time sleeping, the very first step to be able to sleep is to turn off the lights or tv. It may not help but it lessens any stimulation of the mind that keeps you awake. In short, lessen distractions.

Same with having a diet. For instance, never place an ice cream, or chocolates or junk foods in you refrigerator (or better yet, never place your ref inside your room). Although it may force you to go out of the house to buy some in a convenience store 3 blocks away, at least it gives you the option not to buy.

Employ delaying tactics. Placing yourself in a position to buy ice cream allows you more time to distract yourself with other things. Who knows? By the time you get to the convenience store, you're sleeping soundly already.

Take things step by step. Rome isn't built in one day so they say. Actually dieting isn't as easy as actually writing about dieting. Dieting is not about not eating at all. It's about gradually lessening what you regularly consume. If you regularly consume a whole rice, try having a half rice instead.

And who am I to write about dieting anyway when I've not done any dieting at all?

Oh well, blogging about having diet may be a delaying tactic since I have not touched my now-cold sugar-full coffee, which more or less would force me go to the pantry to get another hot one. Then again, a lot could happen covering a distance of about ten meters.

I may be asleep by the time I get there.

Shamanism

There was quite a long lull when everyone was occupied skimming the so called les blogs.

Until the sound of a john flushing was heard. Others claimed it was some type of a ringer tone. Still others suggested it was like the sound of somebody peeing in a quarter-filled arinola.

Then everybody looked at where it came from.

It was the shaman making some aqua concoction in his large sky blue Starbucks water bottle.