Earnestly Speaking

This is how I feel right now:
http://www.sinfest.net/archive_page.php?comicID=411

You see, I called up a hapless technician because my supposedly uber-fast plan is actually uber-slow.

After almost 20 minutes of being constantly put on hold and told to do all manners of ridiculous things WHICH I HAVE ALREADY TRIED FOR THE LOVE OF HUMANITY, I snapped.

"You are throttling my connection! The SEVEN MEGABYTE download started at 15KB then went down to 0.3 in 10 seconds! An hour has passed and still the SEVEN MB FILE HAS NOT FINISHED DOWNLOADING!"

"Try opening Speedtest.com, ma'am..."

"I can't even open Speedtest.com! Do you know how many nights I've surfed there to diagnose the proper snail's pace your connection is going to? I can't even see the latency! I go take a bath, make a coffee and come back...your SPEEDTEST ISN'T EVEN SHOWING THE LATENCY!"

After my yelling and giving him the answers to all the questions I know he's trained to ask (because, oh God in heaven I've talked to so many like him), he finally told me he'd reset my location.

Right. And wait another half an hour.

To probably be told the same f'ing tripe again.

Dear DiGi. I love you. Unlike the other two telcos, you may be slow but you are dependable. EDGE is an aging technology but at least I know that I can send email, surf and not wait an hour to find my SEVEN MEGABYTE DOWNLOAD STILL HASN'T COMPLETED.

I shouldn't need to have TWO internet connections because one is sure to screw up on me. But that's Malaysia for you.

Me and ST, another editor, spent a fruitless time searching for this in Singapore:

Yes, even after all this time I'm still a fan of BioWare's Baldur's Gate II. I've never played the first edition and am still heartbroken that they never got around to making BG III.

Amazingly, there are still plenty of fans of BG II out there, what with the active communities of Inifinity Engine modders who've done everything from creating new quests, tying up plotholes to creating new NPCs.

Female gamers may rejoice - modders have righted the grevious wrong Black Isle inflicted on us by having just one romance option in the whiny wannabe paladin Anomen. Now we have Kelsey, Soulafein and Tsujatha to choose from! Kelsey's a likable human mage, Soulafein is a bisexual drow elf and Tsujatha is a sexy though possesive elf necromancer.

Weimer's BG2 mods are awesome, with his Ascension mod probably the must-have mod to have for a truly satisfying BG2 experience. The Pocket Plane Group also have a great list of mods, my favourite being their Unfinished Business mod which wraps up story threads left loose in BG2:SOA. Male gamers who found Aerie whiny, Jaheira too old and Viconia way too creepy - rejoice! There are plenty of downloadable female NPC mods for you to try too.

I'm installing BG2 on a thumbdrive to see if it's playable on my Asus EeePC. Might give that a go later but right now I just want to download my favourite mods and get to adventuring!

WoW's on hiatus until my ISP (which I shall not name for work reasons) gets its act together or I get a new ISP. I'm slightly upset but there's nothing I can do apart from kidnapping the owners of two prominent telcos and holding them to ransom till they get us better international links.

I went to the Nokia IAC (Independent Artists Club) event at Zouk today and was assailed by the sight of a legion of bloggers.

Since I blog too, I shouldn't feel queasy at the sight of a whole mob of them, right?

Wrong.

I don't really like calling myself a blogger. I prefer being called a writer...who happens to blog. Of course, I've had my own website since the late 90s but have always switched URLs until I finally settled on ernamahyuni.com. Blogging for Blorge.com also keeps me in the loop and taught me valuable lessons about how pro-blogging/paid blogging works.

Then there's the issue of swag - bloggers turning up to events hoping to get goodie bags or other gifts. Don't get me wrong, I like swag. But swag's never been the reason for me to attend an event. Except for that Magic: The Gathering presscon - all I was hoping for was a cool t-shirt, really. But if someone had told me no swag would be given out, I still would have gone because heck, it's M:TG! It's my job to attend events and as an editor, it's also my perogative to be selective about the events I attend.

That's why swag came into existence - to entice media into choosing one event over another of equal importance. Sometimes competing companies will have launches of identical products on the same day, just to see who'd get more attendance. That's when the swag game is played; whoever gives more goodies, gets more people attending.

Perhaps the journalists feel bloggers are encroaching on their territory. Sometimes I wonder if some of them would even attend certain events if no swag was promised? Even more annoying is the envy in the blogosphere when some bloggers get opportunities others don't.

"Kasi can (give (a) chance) to us-lah!"

Just having a blog doesn't entitle you to swag; but I guess just being a journalist is no longer enough to ensure you VIP treatment at events.

Thanks to my awesome procrastination skills, I finally got around to ordering my first set of Moo.com Minicards.

I ordered the trial batch of free Text-only Minicards when they came out and now that I have PayPal funds, I can order these without flinching. US$19.99 for 100 might seem a lot but Minicards are distinctive and attractive. Patrick Teoh saw mine and was captivated enough to ask for one. I was too shy to pass him mine at first because it felt so pretentious...even if we were in a movie together, haha.

BTW, Patrick is awesome in person and his Damansara Steamboat restaurant has a great location, nice ambience, decent prices and no...I'm not getting commission. :p

WCIT is happening in a couple of weeks. Am happy I don't have to do actual work for it - more or less just showing face, sitting at tracks I find interesting and maybe blog about it. Pity my Moo cards won't arrive in time for the event, but no loss.

Am feeling rather irritable today for some reason. Maybe it's because my contacts are being problematic or am still rather tired. Perhaps it's the painful muscle cramps that have been bothering me since last night. Maybe I should just get some sleep.

The call never fails to come.

I meet someone I could possibly find myself attracted to, and the phone rings. Or beeps.

And the caller/texter is always the Significant Other.

Is it instinct? Is it symbiosis? Is it clairvoyance?

Maybe it's just a reminder that though it's all too easy to love the one I'm with, it's not, and will never be, the same as being with the one you love.

Random conversation:

"If we get married at 40, we are SO not having children....get used to me having a lot of cats. Or dogs."
"Are you sure (you don't want to have kids at 40)?"
"Yes."
"OK, so we'll try earlier then."

After blogging for years and keeping an eye on various blogospheres, I have come to a conclusion:

You don't have to be able to write to blog.

It's sad but true.

You don't have to have good content to make money from blogging.
You don't need to watch your grammar, spelling or punctuation.

Should we blame Web advertisements for making blogging for money so accessible?
Should we wish PayPerPost and other similar services for the constant wave of advertorials and the like for all the bloggers solely in it for the money?

Instead of getting better, I think my writing's gotten worse.

I hate 'keywords' - specific terms inserted in posts so search engines will pick them up for more traffic.

I hate seeing all the abused apostrophes on the Internet. Dear God, use 'its' not 'it's'!

A little of me dies inside when I see all the posts written quickly to get picked up on news sites, with little to no subediting and hardly any attention paid to make it engaging, entertaining or more than common tripe or fanboy musings.

But then I read Scalzi or Gaiman's blogs and believe there's still hope that blogs and good writing can mix.

When I went through my Firefox 'Latest Headlines' feed in my browser, I didn't expect this:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/7382859.stm

"It's only a proposal-lah," teh Suan reacted to my going slightly histrionic on MSN.

Proposal-phase or not, our Foreign Minister is seriously off his rocker.

If we allow the proposal to force women traveling alone to get 'permission letters', what next? Soon, women won't be allowed to drive else we'll be kidnapped and killed like Canny Ong.

Then, we won't be allowed to wear skirts - don't want to allow rapists easy access, right?

But TVSmith had a funnier take on the issue:

http://www.tvsmith.net.my/duasen/040508_timeline.html

Oh, my country. We have a narcoleptic for a PM, a dodgy personage as his deputy, an even dodgier son-in-law and a cabinet of buffoons.

I don't know how we're going to get through the next 4 years without something seriously scary happening.

This damn cough won't go away.

It's like an old hurt, or past relationship. Just when you think you've forgotten it, it comes back in full force and won't let you sleep at night.

Am looking forward to a 2-day sojourn in Singapore. Will meet up with fellow comrades-in-arms to commiserate on the industry and have some good food.

Of course, George will be coming along for the ride.


Because George is awesome.

OK, to further elaborate why I prefer George to eBola's HP 2133 (has it arrived yet?):

1. George is light. 0.8 lbs difference doesn't seem like a lot but it will feel like it, trust me, if you're a public transport user like me who does a lot of walking and standing.

2. George is durable. I can be clumsy at times and it's nice to know that if I do, heavens forbid, drop George, the data will likely be accessible and I won't have to worry about moving parts - hooray for SSD!

3. The price, for me, is just right. I don't need something big, with more storage than I could fill up in a year. It has to be cheap, portable and durable. The 2133 isn't cheap (at least, not in Malaysia), it's 0.8 lbs heavier and though I like the keyboard size, it's pretty but too much for my impoverished wallet.

Another friend is waiting for an Atom-powered UMPC to come out.

So he can play World of Warcraft on it.

Oh, WoW, you do create such addicts who will play you even on a 9-inch screen.

After being over the moon about The Hobbit, I temporarily lapsed into madness. I considered going back to Lord of the Rings Online. It is a beautiful game, immersive, with gorgeous graphics, music and free content made frequently available.

So why aren't I ditching WoW for LOTRO, when LOTRO's got a sweet $9.99 monthly deal?

Because I love WoW too much to quit. It would be great if I had better Internet but with Streamyx or Screamyx not being an option, I'm stuck with wireless HSDPA with latency to make a PvPer cry.

Now, I haven't reread the LOTR books for months. I've just bought Gene Wolfe's Severian of the Guild and have yet to finish it.

I should be learning a new language. Restarting my yoga regimen. Working on my website and familiarising myself with Movable Type. Not playing two MMOs, for pete's sake.

If only I could convince my inner geek otherwise.

Not only are they giving us not one, but TWO Hobbit films with Guillermo del Toro directing...

Ian McKellan is reprising his role as the crotchety wizard Gandalf!