My dad once asked me over dinner “Why is Wikipedia free of charge?”. His curiosity was simply because back in his university days, searching for information and gathering knowledge usually means spending hours at the library, pouring through thick and heavy encyclopaedias, theses, journals and various reference books. Back then, those kind of things came with a heavy price tag.

Yet, today, he found a good record of the history Applied Statistics, a little trivia for him to share with the students attending his lecture to make it a bit more interesting. He did in a matter of minutes, and completely free of charge. Oh, you bet he’s loving it. My dad also absolutely loves Google. He uses it to cross reference between theorems and formulae, and to dig out extra info about the latest news.

He types with two fingers on each hand, and without much confidence in his touch-typing - but that’s probably because of his deteriorating eyesight. He used to code in BASIC and COBOL. You see, my dad is over 60 years old. He has changed his cellphones three times because of preference [he has come to favor Nokia over other makes], and not because the previous ones stopped working or anything.

Oh, my dad loves technology, alright. Sure, he runs into a couple of problems once in a while. Whenever that happens, he’ll either give me a quick call, or Google for it himself.

However, my Dad doesn’t blog. He doesn’t even fancy writing to begin with. He doesn’t even fancy non-textbook reading either. His regular diet of light-reading revolves around national news, world news, the stock market and his Math-related textbooks.

My mom, however, loves blogs. She doesn’t blog herself, but she has a long list of blogs in her bookmark. In case you haven’t noticed, my mom loves technology, too. She has taken a fondness over digital photography, and she’s better at using Google’s advanced search features than my dad.

She used to touch-type, but like my dad, she also lost a bit of confidence in her typing. However, she still manages to skillfully type using at least 3 fingers on each hand. Here’s the thing: she’s already a grandmother to five beautiful grandchildren.

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I haven’t done any memes or quizzes for quite a while. Tagged by iblogme :D

Five reasons why I blog.

In short:
To rant, to write, to post pictures, to brag, and because I can.

In long points:

• I’ve been writing since kindergarten. I love listening to fairy tales, adventures, and mysteries. I’ve always tried to write out plots and create an interesting scenario, but in the end, I find the most comfort writing out my thoughts. What I think, how I feel. It’s almost like a form of escapism for me. A legal drug.
• When I first learned of Angelfire and Geocities, I’ve always wanted a webpage I can call my own. After discarding the old Windows 3.1 desktop for a Windows 95 Pentium 233Mhz-powered machine, I experienced the Internet at home, and began exploring it more than I ever had. I became very interested in technology and the Web, and eventually I got here.
• In real life, I lie too much. I put up a nice guy facade, I talk calmly. I do it because it’s one of the things I try to do, and that is to bring out the best in the people I meet everyday. I draw out kindness by being kind, intelligence by offering thoughts, and quality effort by offering sincere trust. Just that, people can be assholes sometimes. And by honestly bitching, ranting and raving in writing, blogging has become a sort of anger-management for me. While I do blog behind a screen name, I don’t really make an effort to blog anonymously. Perhaps I just want people to know how pissed off I can get sometimes.
• I used to write a diary, sort of, during secondary school. But it was mostly pointless and dreary with stupid pop culture references that don’t even have the slightest iota of intelligent humour in it. But I do like to write out my feelings and my thoughts, and I love to have them read by people who know me, or at least ones who want to know me. It’s one of those little pleasures, like hot chocolate on a rainy night.
• I’m a show-off. Really. I like showing people my works of art. Writing, drawing, photography. Though art itself might be the very thing that the works lack the most :p Still, I poured a decent amount of effort into them, and I enjoyed making them, and I put them up here online in hopes that you can share some of the joy that I experienced with them.

I shamelessly tag Zahra, Albert, Ross and Syefri!

“Excuse me,but I believe I already booked this room from 8 PM till late.” I asked the few people who have begun setting up for a big meeting in that lecture room.

“Err, yeah. I know, I checked in the online booking page, but the room we booked still has a class going on. But we’d like to start our meeting early…” said one of the guys. Seeing how he was handling a bunch of documents, I quickly assumed that he must be the club chairman or something. “..so, do you think we can swap rooms? Please?”

Some five pairs of eyes were looking at me, some of them with a begging look, some with a ‘buzz off, loser!‘ stare. I took a deep breath, and leaned at the door to think for while. Ten seconds later, I sighed and reluctantly agreed. Everyone immediately shot off with their thanks and apologies, even though I’m not even sure if half of them actually mean it. I just waved my palm and shook my head lightly in a ‘don’t sweat it‘ fashion. I looked at my wrist watch. It’s only 7.30 PM, and I usually come in early to do checks on the AV equipment, but it looks like things have taken a different turn this time around.

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I’ve been having frequent close encounters with a certain terrestrial lifeform lately.

In fact, they’re rather adaptable in different environments.

Okay, so they possess some amphibious capabilities.

Alright, so they ARE amphibians!

They’re frogs.

Random Dude: And toads?

Sigh, yes. And toads.

Throughout the past 2 weeks, three out of five times I will find a frog [or a toad] taking a nap in one of my running shoes.

Every three or four days a frog [or a toad] would be happily hopping away, crossing my path as I’m about to leave the house.

And at least three times a month, in the dead of night, a frog [or a toad] will always sesat into my DRY kitchen.

And I’m always the one to have to send the poor motherfucker out the window -.-”

.
.
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Any horoscopical/feng shui ideas or superstitious bullshit ideas that can interpret these strange occurrences?

UPDATE:
Goddammit. I completely forgot about Bloggers Together Gather and absent-mindedly promised my mom I’d take her to visit an aunt tonight.

I phailed. _|¯|O

You know, I don’t really mean to be a thorn in anybody’s sides, nor am I just a bunch of sour grapes. Just that, I find it extremely annoying, as well as extremely sad everytime I hear about a ridiculous amount of A’s scored during a major exam.

Nadiah Amirah, an 18-year-old from SM Tun Sardon is likely to get 19 1As in the examinations and replace Nur Amalina Che Bakri, who obtained 17 1As in 2004, as the country’s top scorer.

[...]

She took Bahasa Melayu, English, Modern Mathematics, Additional Mathematics, Physics, Chemistry, Biology, History, Islamic Studies and English for Science and Technology.

Her other subjects were Principles of Accounting, Commerce, Basic Economy, Tasaur Islam, Al-Quran and Sunah Studies, Syariah Legal Studies, Pure Science, Geography and Literature.

- [source]

Damn gao champion, right? Not. Isn’t that like, taking every goddamn available subject? You know, I personally think pulling off shit like this is completely pointless, and as an aspiring techie, I find it to be ridiculously inefficient.

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