[No, this is not a sponsored post. I'm not paid by anyone, nor do I intend to receive anything from this post. This is just a little token of appreciation on my part.]

When I first started blogging, I never had any idea who came and visited. Edrei was the one who first sparked off this curiosity. “Get a website tracker,” he said. “It can help you with a lot of information about your visitors.” So I tried a few different free tracking services. Some had too much charts in a single page, some had too much numbers everywhere. One gem, however, suited my needs perfectly. I found StatCounter

As a newbie in the internets back then, I was unfamiliar with the lingo in web statistics. Fortunately for me, their system sorted out all the data into easy-to-understand graphs and charts, and each information is nicely sorted out accordingly e.g. Recent Came From, Recent Visitor Activity.

On top of that, each page has a brief explanation of what each chart is about, and how the information on that particular page can help me improve my site. The final icing on the cake is how their team is very much in touch with their users, without discriminating the people who use their free or paid services.

The counter you put on your site is also customizable to suit your needs. As you can see, that little numbers on my footer block is the StatCounter tracker, it has a transparent background and tweaking its appearance only requires a few clicks in the userpage - no coding required at all! In fact, if you can’t suit it to your site’s style, you can always set it as a transparent counter.

An important reason why I blogged about my site counter this time is because Aodhen Cullen, the ‘man behind Statcounter’ as he is dubbed, has been nominated for Businessweek’s Young Entrepreneur Award! He already has gotten my instant vote for his brilliant system and the wonderful effort of his team. I’ve been using their free service for years, and I have noticed how they constantly improve themselves with every passing moment.

Vote for Aodhan, because StatCounter ROCKS!

Wow.

Another one of my friends is getting married. Well, technically, he’s my friend. In reality, I barely feel any kind of connection or bond to him whatsoever, save for a few scrapes of fading memory from the short time we spent at the boarding school in Kedah almost a decade ago.

I took a quick look at the list of people I left behind in Kedah back when my dad pulled my sorry ass out of there in 2000. I look at their profiles in [various] online social networks and I thought, wow, what a bunch of successful people they are.

They left school with brilliant SPM results, completed their A-levels with first-class results, and now close to graduating from universities abroad. A majority of them are deeply in love with their soul-mates and more than a few have gotten married. They are indeed a bunch of very intelligent and hardworking people. They deserve every single bit of their substantial success.

I felt tears welling in my eyes as I began to look inwards.

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At my age now, I am eligible to vote. But I honestly don’t know who to vote for.

I realized that a horrible part of growing up is that you will come to learn of a lot of things. Dark things, evil things and cruel things. Things that force you to think really, really hard before you make any decision. At times, even after struggling so hard, you can never be sure if the choice you made was the right one.

My doubts have just been reinforced today, with the case of Lina Joy.

Quite a few friends have asked me how I felt about the whole thing, since they know I’m not the type to shut away discussions like this. Unfortunately, every time someone brings up this question, I can’t find an answer. I honestly couldn’t. It’s not like I don’t want to tell you what think because ‘it might offend you’ or shit like that. I don’t hold back on things like these, as some of you already know.

I just really don’t know what to think of it.

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So yeah, I’ve been quite slow on anime updates, lately. A couple of shows have wrapped up, and new ones are already halfway through their first kurs. Since quite a number of you have asked me that same question over and over again, here’s a quick update. Okay, not so quick, since I’m gonna be writing out a long list of stuff here. Been backlogged with, you know, a life. I *do* have one, in case you forgot.

Le Chevalier D’Eon
After a long wait, I finally got to watch the final episode [24th] of Chevalier yesterday. With all the mystery unveiled, the story at last comes to a close. Chevalier had a great storyline, but not nearly as gripping as Production IG’s other works. Of course, I’m not expecting things like Ghost in The Shell, but Blood+ was much, much better than Chevalier in terms of story. Better animation however goes to Chevalier for speedy and elaborate sword duels, whereas Blood+ pales in comparison with its lazy animations and ’speed lines’ [Ganaesh, you know what I'm talking about].

Chevalier builds up a great plot and mystery, but the ending is quite,… disappointing, to say the least.

Jigoku Shoujo Futakomori
For the second time, Jigoku Shoujo has awed me with sheer awesomeness alone. There really isn’t much to shout about in terms of animation, but the story of Jigoku Shoujo is the real winner, which is very heartfelt and intense. Both seasons have successfully illustrated fear, anguish and pure hatred and took all those dark emotions to the extremes.

The drama started out very late, but eventually builds up quickly in intensity and suspence before finally ending it all with totally unexpected outcome. I couldn’t help but go WTF, and at the very end, I was close to tears. I shall forever regret that this wonderful series has finally come to an end. You must watch this show, and you must watch it alone to fully appreciate the experience.

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