Caramel Toffee //

- University of Auckland - Opp. Clock Tower -

… so that the stability of our country won’t be questioned further.

I’ve heard nothing but political shits when I ask my relatives and friends in Malaysia the same simple question of “How’s home?”

I’ve also noticed that more than 50% of Malaysian blogs (newly updated or pinged) are talking about political shits. The same thing over and over; all the slandering, namecalling (I swear, people can be so childish when they’re blabbering), etc etc.

Some of my international friends messaged me out of the blue: “Is Malaysia in some big political brawls now? I keep seeing Malaysians blogging about politics all the time. I thought they’re saying that your country is one of the famous mediators of peace or something…?”

You have no idea how ashamed and frustrated I feel after hearing this question.

How am I supposed to answer? Should I just give them this: “Well, actually, people simply like to fan small flames so that it gets really big. You know, make things all spicy to call for attention.” Or maybe I could simply say: “Don’t worry. I’m tired of all the political shits they’re writing about too.”

Can’t we have someplace reserved only for political bloggers? Correction. Can we have separate places for separate themes, like, ASAP?

I used to love Petalingstreet.org, and I use it still until today. But it gets REALLy tiring when all you see everyday is people blabbering about politics in the ‘Latest Pings’. And for goodness’ sake, they should refrain from double-posting the same thing. It’s a waste of good space.

I swear, blogs should have specific ratings too. We have 18PL for media broadcast. Why not blogs too?

I miss the time period between 2000 and 2003 so much. Blogs were more interesting back then although blogging platforms had less features.

The new year premiered with accompanying rain and freezing cold temperature the whole day. Just when I thought the rainy season is finally gone, today’s continuous rain made me think otherwise. It felt so nice to sleep under my favourite thick comforter, and leaving the bed was the hardest thing to do. Last year, January kicked off with glaring sun, but this year it’s the total opposite. I could barely do anything without a sweater too. You can say that my tolerance to cold weather sucks.

I didn’t do much today. Slept in, write, read, eat, write, surf, read, slept some more. Visited a number of interesting blogs today. Well, it’s hard to keep up with all the interesting blogs after disappearing from the blogging world for so long. Hope I’ll get the hang of it soon.

The rain made my brain go into what I call the ‘brood-and-muse’ mode. It was on a whim that I wrote the latest entry in Stylish Geeks: Anticipating Malaysian Virtual Scenario in 2008. All that I wrote there was based on my observation and my own experience, coupled with my hopes. There’s one thing I forgot to mention in the entry - local-based online advertising. Last month, I wrote about ‘junk ads’ flooding Cari.com.my and some other sites. I hope 2008 will get people to be more mature. No one is going to believe ads like ‘Fire your own boss’ or ‘Make $10,000/mo without working’. Those ads are absolute eyesores. Like some Japanese people said, ‘there’s no such thing as free lunch‘. We only gain what we deserve.

Malaysian sites developers, especially the Cari.com.my team should monitor the ads being put up in their classifieds directory. I’d say more than 50% of the ads are not at all relevant to category listings.

Also, I’d love to see how local advertisers like Nuffnang, Nufflets, GrabMyAds and Advertlets compete in the growing virtual community and online advertising network. It’s not surprising if more similar companies announce their presence in the near future.

One more thing… I’d like to welcome Adi to the Caramel Toffee family. Hope we can be friends His new blog is not ready yet, but later on, you can always have a look at http://adi.carameltoffee.net.

Laters~