aol closed down all their blog / website hosting stuff (and eventually they deleted all the sites too). tho they let you transfer everything over to blogger, so i did. but i kept it as three separate blogs: travel log, amusings, and snapshots. and, actually, i didn't link them all to each other either. if you clicked on my profile, you could easily find travel log, which was my personal site. but if you didn't check my profile, you'd have to find it on snapshots. i didn't link it from amusings at all. lol, i dunno, just trying to keep things private-ish i guess. i have a similar set up now too, actually.
in febuary 2006, i created "travel guide" which is really just a site for me to keep track of what i'd read that month. sometime in 2010 i also kind of started to keep track of movies watched.
i started tapering off my blogging in 2006, and in early 2010 i barely blogged at all. in fall 2010 i sort of re-discovered my blogs and started posting again. and by the end of the year i deleted amusings and snapshots. i exported all those posts to travel log tho, so i do still have them all. i was just tired of posting and i was sad to see these dead sites.
for most of 2011 i've been pretty consistent in posting here, usually every 3 or 4 days. i tried adding pictures to make my posts more interesting, but since i'm really just writing for myself, i get tired of finding pictures.
oddly enough, i still have a couple other side sites that i sorta maintain. my restaurant picking site taster's choice. and i occasionally share a post with my girlfriends' old site: 6 degrees of design. (us girls have had a couple blogs over the years as well, lol. (one for all of us started in 2004, one design one (nov 2008), and two wedding specific ones). i also now help maintain my dragon boat team's site. i don't normally contribute content there; i mostly just post our weekly digest. but i did tinker with the design a little bit, adding the nav bar and a few other simple things.
anyway, i just wanted to write this up in case many many years from now i struggled to remember how i got started blogging. btw, shout outs to ting, robert, and rip. you three have pretty consistently read and commented my entire blogging career. angel has started reading / commenting a lot too. that really means a lot. thanks everyone!! :) it's super awesome cause i write / post for me. even back when i was doing "amusings" it was so i could somehow keep track of all the funny things i'd found. i now use this site and my google+ for interesting articles.
Wednesday, December 28, 2011
Tuesday, December 27, 2011
still blogging 1
i think i started my first blog in college (i actually have posts saved from 1/27/03, tho nowhere does it say anything resembling "hello world, i am new to blogging!"). it was olive green and was called "trips / travels" (defunct link: http://hometown.aol.com/neurp/opener.html) it was hosted by aol hometown and it was really difficult to use because it there wasn't a blog template; it was a blank page that you could add text boxes to (no rulers either! so you had to line everything up manually). it actually had a couple pages: the olive green homepage (with links and stuff), and a black blog in blue font (called "trips"). eventually i added a magenta page highlighting some lovier passages i had written about reep. ...and no, the colors aren't actually important, but that's how i see them in my head.
after that first attempt, aol journals released an actual blog template. in june 2004 i started "(a)musing(s)" (defunct link: http://journals.aol.com/neurp/musings/) and it too was olive green. i mostly posted fun links and stuff. i now used "trips / travels" as my main page and linked my blog thru there. i think i was was also considering live journal, but i decided to stick with aol.
october 2004. started "travel log" (defunct link: http://journals.aol.com/neurp/travellog/) to take over my more personal "trips." i wanted a separate blog because i was getting random hits from strangers on (a)musing(s) and felt uncomfortable with them knowing the intimate details of my personal life. i like journals cause there was text box for music and you could display your mood (you could choose one of ...maybe 15). so at the end of some of my older blog posts, i have lyrics.
on april 24th 2005, i created yet another blog. this time named "snapshots," which focused on pretty things, rather than funny things, a la "(a)musing(s)." so i now had three blogs which i updated simultaneously. crazily enough, i was averaging about 2.5 posts every weekday. that's nuts!! i think by now i was just used to compartmentalizing my blogs. and really, i had two, what was one more? also, at that time you couldn't save your posts to be automatically published later (as i do now)
...history continued romrow...
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| screenshot of trips / travels from 2005 |
october 2004. started "travel log" (defunct link: http://journals.aol.com/neurp/travellog/) to take over my more personal "trips." i wanted a separate blog because i was getting random hits from strangers on (a)musing(s) and felt uncomfortable with them knowing the intimate details of my personal life. i like journals cause there was text box for music and you could display your mood (you could choose one of ...maybe 15). so at the end of some of my older blog posts, i have lyrics.
on april 24th 2005, i created yet another blog. this time named "snapshots," which focused on pretty things, rather than funny things, a la "(a)musing(s)." so i now had three blogs which i updated simultaneously. crazily enough, i was averaging about 2.5 posts every weekday. that's nuts!! i think by now i was just used to compartmentalizing my blogs. and really, i had two, what was one more? also, at that time you couldn't save your posts to be automatically published later (as i do now)
...history continued romrow...
Saturday, December 24, 2011
bachelors in china
a single man: one chinese bachelor's search for love
omg what a freaking sad article! btw, this is about a bachelor in china, not about a chinese guy here in the states.
“China is probably the only country in the world that mandates a girl to marry someone two years older than herself,” says Cai, referring to a law that allows women to marry at 20, but requires men to wait until 22.
“For Chinese women who want to date or marry, it’s easy. ridiculously easy.”
"And as the gender imbalance grows, it increasingly affects poor women in even darker ways, contributing to a rise in forced marriages, prostitution, and human trafficking."
"For the past 20 years, eternal bachelorhood has become an increasingly likely fate for Chinese men, particularly for those in remote areas without access to jobs. As this group of desperate, sexually frustrated men grows, the situation could become even more grim... In 2007, Edlund published a study that showed that a 1 percent increase in sex ratio could lead to a 5 percent increase in crime rate"
"This trend could create a new marriage economy, she says, encouraging lower-class parents to sex-select for daughters while the wealthy continue to have sons. Relegated to the underclass, women’s growing financial value could prime them for exploitation by their impoverished parents who could sell them to wealthier families for ever-increasing bride prices."
omg what a freaking sad article! btw, this is about a bachelor in china, not about a chinese guy here in the states.
“China is probably the only country in the world that mandates a girl to marry someone two years older than herself,” says Cai, referring to a law that allows women to marry at 20, but requires men to wait until 22.
“For Chinese women who want to date or marry, it’s easy. ridiculously easy.”
"And as the gender imbalance grows, it increasingly affects poor women in even darker ways, contributing to a rise in forced marriages, prostitution, and human trafficking."
"For the past 20 years, eternal bachelorhood has become an increasingly likely fate for Chinese men, particularly for those in remote areas without access to jobs. As this group of desperate, sexually frustrated men grows, the situation could become even more grim... In 2007, Edlund published a study that showed that a 1 percent increase in sex ratio could lead to a 5 percent increase in crime rate"
"This trend could create a new marriage economy, she says, encouraging lower-class parents to sex-select for daughters while the wealthy continue to have sons. Relegated to the underclass, women’s growing financial value could prime them for exploitation by their impoverished parents who could sell them to wealthier families for ever-increasing bride prices."
Wednesday, December 21, 2011
assume nothing
rabbi adam jacobs - the god test: why everyone believes
this guy really pisses me off. i think he's a fucking idiot. seriously. he assumes way too much (and incorrectly a that).
"...so many of their choices and thinking patterns seem to suggest that they believe something quite unlike that which they profess." isn't everyone at some point hypocritical? people are complicated, dumb ass! and btw, the religious are as contradictory as the rest of us. e.g. are atheists the only ones afraid to die?
"Often, I've inquired of non-believers if it at all vexes them that nothing that they have ever done or will ever do will make the slightest difference to anyone on any level? After all, one random grouping of molecules interacting with another has no inherent meaning or value." ...just cause i don't believe in god doesn't mean i don't think that life has value. if anything, i might find it more valuable because it's so random. i know how lucky we are to be around because some things had happened just a little bit differently, humankind might not ever have existed. and if something went horribly wrong there'd be no stopping it since i don't believe that someone can step in to stop it (i.e. no god to preform miracles!)
jacobs makes a huge mis-assumption. he believes in god and that gives his life meaning. but just because i believe there is no god doesn't mean i find life worthless.
this isn't an "if an only if" situation. and how incredibly pompous of him to even think so!
in regards to his questions: 1. no, because i don't have a dog. but also because i love my parents enough to want to honor their wishes (as long as they don't really hinder my life in any way). but if i needed money and someone offered me some for either sex or my parents' dead bodies, you'd better believe i'm not going become a prostitute.
2. i'm not going to kill him because there's simply no reason to. what would be the point of killing someone who's going to be dead in a hour anyway? for my personal satisfaction? well, i'm not a murderer and i get squeamish when killing bugs so i doubt i'd have the stomach to kill a person. having a gun would make it easier, but again, why bother?
3. it can be. art, love, beauty (and religion) make some people think life is worth living. and if it isn't hurting anyone, why destroy it? music doesn't feed my body, and it certainly doesn't feed my "soul", but it makes me happy. so that's cool.
alo, btw, atheists aren't non-believers. we are believers. we believe there is no god.
this guy really pisses me off. i think he's a fucking idiot. seriously. he assumes way too much (and incorrectly a that).
"...so many of their choices and thinking patterns seem to suggest that they believe something quite unlike that which they profess." isn't everyone at some point hypocritical? people are complicated, dumb ass! and btw, the religious are as contradictory as the rest of us. e.g. are atheists the only ones afraid to die?
"Often, I've inquired of non-believers if it at all vexes them that nothing that they have ever done or will ever do will make the slightest difference to anyone on any level? After all, one random grouping of molecules interacting with another has no inherent meaning or value." ...just cause i don't believe in god doesn't mean i don't think that life has value. if anything, i might find it more valuable because it's so random. i know how lucky we are to be around because some things had happened just a little bit differently, humankind might not ever have existed. and if something went horribly wrong there'd be no stopping it since i don't believe that someone can step in to stop it (i.e. no god to preform miracles!)
jacobs makes a huge mis-assumption. he believes in god and that gives his life meaning. but just because i believe there is no god doesn't mean i find life worthless.
in regards to his questions: 1. no, because i don't have a dog. but also because i love my parents enough to want to honor their wishes (as long as they don't really hinder my life in any way). but if i needed money and someone offered me some for either sex or my parents' dead bodies, you'd better believe i'm not going become a prostitute.
2. i'm not going to kill him because there's simply no reason to. what would be the point of killing someone who's going to be dead in a hour anyway? for my personal satisfaction? well, i'm not a murderer and i get squeamish when killing bugs so i doubt i'd have the stomach to kill a person. having a gun would make it easier, but again, why bother?
3. it can be. art, love, beauty (and religion) make some people think life is worth living. and if it isn't hurting anyone, why destroy it? music doesn't feed my body, and it certainly doesn't feed my "soul", but it makes me happy. so that's cool.
alo, btw, atheists aren't non-believers. we are believers. we believe there is no god.
Saturday, December 17, 2011
cheap vs fast food
i've heard a lot of people complain about how one of the reasons they wanted to quit smoking cigarettes was because it was just too expensive a habit. i think the same thing can apply to eating healthier. imagine how many people would eat less fast food if it was also super expensive!
we should tax fast food and use that money to subsidize healthy stuff. taxes from burgers make peaches cheaper. wouldn't that be awesome? experts say that we don't eat enough fruits and vegetables, but if they were a lot cheaper, i think people would totally eat them.
btw, notice that i'm not saying that the govt should tax fast food restaurants. mcdonald's offers salads, water, milk, fruit parfaits, apple dippers, etc. those things can remain tax free. but if you plan to get fries with that order, you'll need to pay extra.
btw, i'm not talking about like a 10% tax. i mean it when i compare this to the cigarettes. maybe an 80% tax? i haven't thought too much about the numbers, but i do think it should be significant enough to deter people from eating unhealthy fast food. because as long as prices are close, the convenience of fast food cannot be overlooked.and i think one way to help eating better easier is to make healthier food significantly cheaper than fast food.
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btw, notice that i'm not saying that the govt should tax fast food restaurants. mcdonald's offers salads, water, milk, fruit parfaits, apple dippers, etc. those things can remain tax free. but if you plan to get fries with that order, you'll need to pay extra.
btw, i'm not talking about like a 10% tax. i mean it when i compare this to the cigarettes. maybe an 80% tax? i haven't thought too much about the numbers, but i do think it should be significant enough to deter people from eating unhealthy fast food. because as long as prices are close, the convenience of fast food cannot be overlooked.and i think one way to help eating better easier is to make healthier food significantly cheaper than fast food.
Tuesday, December 13, 2011
brinicle!!
this brinicle stuff is freaking amazing! short video, must watch! read the video description for info. for slightly more info, read this article. for more details, go look it up yourself. :)
Sunday, December 11, 2011
history lessons
learned from robert k massie's nicholas and alexandra: rasputin was first poisoned with huge amounts of cyanide, then shot and confirmed pulse-less by a dr. he wasn't dead tho, cause he got up and ran out the house where he was shot at three more times in the back. he was still alive tho, so his murderers clubbed him, tied him up, and wrapped him in up a carpet. they then threw him in an icy river. days later, when they took his body out, it was discovered that he had actually managed to free an arm, and that after the poisoning, gun shots, and beating, he had finally died by drowning.
learned from charles panati's extraordinary origins of everyday things: ptolemy VIII married his sister cleopatra II. as a birthday present, he had their son dismembered and his head, hands and feet sent to to her.
learned from charles panati's extraordinary origins of everyday things: ptolemy VIII married his sister cleopatra II. as a birthday present, he had their son dismembered and his head, hands and feet sent to to her.
Friday, December 9, 2011
unoriginal
sometimes the coincidences in the world are just so great that you kind of can't believe there isn't something controlling the universe. and i pretty often feel like the controller of the universe is sometimes just damn lazy.
example: i was reading a book that mentioned a short story. a few days later, i was reading a book being propped up by another book. i closed the first book, and was about to close the other when a line of all caps in the text caught my eye. i read it and then some more, thought it was vaguely interesting and looked to the top of the page for the author or title of the story. and guess what? it was the swimmer by john cheever. the same short story that my first book had mentioned.
i use a book to prop open my current reading, but i don't ever read it any more. it's huge, has onion paper, and has a lot of great, but also a ton of really boring, stuff. but that line of all caps made me look at it. and the story is really short too, only a couple pages. and since i read a ton and have pretty poor memory, i rarely remember what i read, especially if it has nothing to do with the story, which the cheever story doesn't really. so it's also weird that i remember that it was that same story. what a weird coincidence!
example: i was reading a book that mentioned a short story. a few days later, i was reading a book being propped up by another book. i closed the first book, and was about to close the other when a line of all caps in the text caught my eye. i read it and then some more, thought it was vaguely interesting and looked to the top of the page for the author or title of the story. and guess what? it was the swimmer by john cheever. the same short story that my first book had mentioned.
i use a book to prop open my current reading, but i don't ever read it any more. it's huge, has onion paper, and has a lot of great, but also a ton of really boring, stuff. but that line of all caps made me look at it. and the story is really short too, only a couple pages. and since i read a ton and have pretty poor memory, i rarely remember what i read, especially if it has nothing to do with the story, which the cheever story doesn't really. so it's also weird that i remember that it was that same story. what a weird coincidence!
Wednesday, December 7, 2011
Monday, December 5, 2011
better life
when most of talk about illegal aliens, i think we often forget about the people who come over and try to get professional jobs. or even those who come (maybe on a student visa) and try to get an education first, before trying to get work. but really, illegal is illegal. having more education doesn't mean you're more law-abiding.
and i know this is crazy over-generalizing, but i have more respect for the illegal aliens who maybe pay coyotes hundreds of dollars, risk their lives to get here, work under-paying sucky jobs while living like sardines in a tiny room. many of these people send as much money as they can back home to their families. they work here a few years, maybe a decade, and when they feel like they've earned enough money, they go back home and live middle class lives.
i get that mostly every illegal alien came over to try to live a better life, so really, it's all the same. but some of the jump-ship students drive around in beemers and seem to live better lives than the rest of us who are here legally! gah, anyway. no point to this rant. just saying.
and i know this is crazy over-generalizing, but i have more respect for the illegal aliens who maybe pay coyotes hundreds of dollars, risk their lives to get here, work under-paying sucky jobs while living like sardines in a tiny room. many of these people send as much money as they can back home to their families. they work here a few years, maybe a decade, and when they feel like they've earned enough money, they go back home and live middle class lives.
i get that mostly every illegal alien came over to try to live a better life, so really, it's all the same. but some of the jump-ship students drive around in beemers and seem to live better lives than the rest of us who are here legally! gah, anyway. no point to this rant. just saying.
Saturday, December 3, 2011
occupy satire
i'm for the occupy movement. but this video is freaking funny. thanks to robert for the link!
Thursday, December 1, 2011
seeds
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the svalbard global seed vault is a secured seedbank on a norwegian island in the arctic. "The facility preserves a wide variety of plant seeds in an underground cavern. The seeds are duplicate samples, or "spare" copies, of seeds held in gene banks worldwide. The seed vault will provide insurance against the loss of seeds in genebanks, as well as a refuge for seeds in the case of large scale regional or global crises." (wikipedia)
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