My blog is 3 years old today

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MKL gathering material for a blog post, @Miramar, 3/2011.

Exactly 3 years ago I wrote this post and I had no idea where my blogging journey will bring me. I just started a simple blogspot blog and ranted about my daily life few times a month. It took me over a year to start updating regularly and almost a year and a half to get a group of loyal readers and commentators. I decided to expand my blog by adding another one for informative articles and another one for bigger photos, yet gave them the same design and name, so that all three blogs feel like one. Then came an increase of haters, recognition, awards, criticism and more criticism, which surprised me a lot and made me look like a very important person. But those who follow me for a long time, know that I don't feel that way. I still feel I'm running simple blogspot blogs, sharing my passions for Slovenia, Taiwan, Taipei, traveling, photography and many other things. Of course I enjoy getting more traffic and more comments, but that's all that is. I'm not making any real money (only few bucks with Ad Sense, which I plan to remove soon), I don't write advertorials, I'm not associated with any organization, everything I recommend, from food to interesting places to visit, is purely because I believe that others may enjoy these things as well. And I'm planning to continue this way, but I think I may update less, because I will be very busy in the near future. If you want to read some of my best or most popular posts, go to my best of page.

My plans for the near future:

• I want to be one of the best resources on traveling to Taipei (and Taiwan). Once I finish visiting all the famous parts of the city, I will write detailed guides for travelers and link to my posts.
  
  
• I want to be the best resource on night markets in Taipei and Taiwan. I have blogged in great detail about 20 night markets so far and I hope I will manage to introduce over 50 by the end of the year. What I try to do is be systematic and thorough, something that many websites and blogs lack.
  
  
• I will continue blogging about the places I visit in Taiwan or elsewhere and share them with you. Expect a big series of posts on Tainan, Hualien, Penghu and Kinmen in the future.
  
  
• I'll post a lot of Chinese vocabulary, because I'm currently learning to write and read Chinese. I think it will be useful to those who are also learning Chinese, so stay tuned.
  
  
• I will make few changes on the layout, but only minor ones, because I'm generally happy with the way it is.

Thanks again to those who still stick around and read my blog(s) and comment (or don't comment). The main blog is here and will remain here. If you're a big fan of me, you can subscribe to my 2nd and 3rd blog as well. They will however be a lot about Taiwan and may not be updated regularly in the future. If you feel like getting updates of all my 3 blogs on one platform, please follow me on my recently established Facebook page. We're a small community, but steadily growing.

Happy birthday to my blog.

To those, who like statistics: As of today, I have written over 1000 posts, made over 50 pages and received nearly 10.000 comments. I have 233 subscribers in Google Reader, between 700-1000 daily visitors. All together in the past 3 years I have almost 300.000 unique visitors and nearly 700.000 page views and the trend is constantly on the up (stats count all 3 blogs together).

A Taiwanderful interview with me

Best Taiwan blog award 2010 winner

Check the interview with me on Taiwanderful.com. I'm answering questions regarding my blog and Taiwan in general. You'll get to know me a little better, in case you are one of my new followers.

Happy 2011!

I won the Taiwanderful award 2010!

I'm Best Taiwan Blog 2010 by popular vote

Ladies and Gents, we won the Best Taiwan Blog Award 2010 hosted by Taiwanderful.com! Yes, we actually did it. And believe it or not, we won 3 awards by popular vote: The Best Overall Taiwan Blog, Best General Taiwan Blog and Best Northern Taiwan Blog. Woohoo! Thank you so much for every vote you have cast for me. I am almost lost for words.

But I still have to say something to all of you. I really don't know where to start and who to thank, because so many of you have voted and spread the word to your friends, who have voted as well, be it Taiwanese, Slovenian or from all over the world. So thank you and I mean all of you. Amazing, how it all went viral so fast. With that said, I really need to dedicate a special thank you to my lovely girlfriend Lily, who helped me win this one, because she fired up so many of her friends. I would not win this one without her - she's truly gold. And combined with my own friends and readers, we reached the incredible number of 619 votes, 115 more than the blog that made it to second place. I would love to mention everyone of you, but the list would be endless, so I'll only mention few, who went out of their way to help me get more votes, namely Saša, Fui Fa, Ade, Roni, Stefanie and Joanne, thanks a lot guys and girls. This competition showed how many friends I have and how many people appreciate the effort I put in this blog. I really felt that every vote was cast with love and appreciation and that's truly the best Christmas present I ever got. You guys are my Santa this year, everyone of you. Thanks for spreading the love and you can be sure that I'll return it whenever I can. Really really thank you! 謝謝! This award is yours and mine, we won it together. We're awesome ;-)

And since the whole idea behind the competition was to highlight some great English language blogs about Taiwan, I want to share my favorite 3 here. I actually don't follow that many Taiwan bloggers, but the few I do are really top notch, if you ask me. These are my personal winners this year:

1. Steven Vigar photography: He's just purely amazing. If I'm ever half the photographer he is, then I'm already a photography god. His portraits are amazing, you have to check them out. Steven is extremely talented and nice and I think he would equally deserve to win the top award this year. Follow him, you'll love his pics.
   
   
2. Yellow Fever, Foreign Moons: This blog features multiple writers, who share stories about relationships between foreigners and Taiwanese. Sometimes the stories are weird, sometimes funny, but always very blunt. And every post is translated in Chinese. The debates can get heated up, but it's definitely a good read. Please follow, that blog deserves more comments and readers.
   
   
3. Josh in Taiwan: Another awesome photographer, who makes incredible phots. Sadly, I'll never be able to make them as good as he does, but luckily that's not something I aspire. Josh sees so much beauty in every detail, his photos are truly magical. He could easily win a peer-judged award, had he been more visible these days.

You can also follow David's and Fili's blog, they're the ones that organized the Taiwanderful Blog Award 2010. Thank you guys for bringing together so many great bloggers, who are passionate about Taiwan. I hope 2011 will be a great year for all of us and for the R.O.C., that'll turn 100 years. Looking forward to many great articles and blog posts. If you're interested in following some other Taiwan blogs, go here and check the blog directory.

So what can you expect from me in 2011? As far as Taiwan goes (and I'm not only gonna blog about that), I plan to visit every bigger night market in and around Taipei and introduce them. I'll make tons of pics, write reviews, recommend the best food and then make a list. Another thing I plan to do is to visit every museum in Taipei (and elsewhere if given the chance) and then blog about that, too. The third thing I plan are my travelogues. I wanna visit so many places I haven't seen yet, such as Tainan (I've only been there 2 hours at night), Hualien, Chiayi, Miaoli, Nantou, Taitung, Yilan and many more... Expect pics, tips and funny stories. Besides all that, I'll explore the Taiwanese pop culture, introduce models, singers and other fun stuff. No idea what's in store for me next year, but if everything goes right, my blog will be one of the best resources on Taiwan by the end of 2011. Looking forward to that :) I hope you do, too.

Happy holidays, everybody!

Read also: Taiwanese flooded my blog>>

A famous blogger interviewed me!

I should have told you this before, but I was scared. I'm still electrified from what happened. But now I feel brave enough to tell you: I was interviewed by a famous blogger, by the fantabulous Johana Hill, the sexy blogette from the island O'luv. Let me tell you, how it all went down. Those who read Johana's blog, know how hot she's is and how many guys go woooooooooooh when she passes by. Then you can imagine how I was nervous, when I saw her curvaceous self approaching me in her killer heels. She opened the big gate of her villa by herself and I was surprised, that she told her security personnel to back off. She walked slowly and gracefully towards me, I was trembling and sweating from every pore. She gave me three air kisses on the cheeks and then gently took my hand and walked me to her interview room. We sat on stiletto shaped pink chairs, she crossed her legs slowly and I asked her to bring a towel, because my sweat was like a shower to me. She chuckled, when she saw me frantically wiping my face, then put on her sexy glasses, lit herself a cigarette and started to read the first question to me. I totally cramped, started to stutter, the situation was killing me. But since I've agreed to do the interview, I had no choice, I had to be strong and make it through alive! I tried my best to give some good answers to her killer questions. If I did well, I don't know... You can find that out for yourself, the interview was published here.

And don't forget to follow Joahana Hill. She's awe-sum! :-)

Photo sources: [1, 2]

Super commentator award from Carina

Carina, the lovely blogarina from Norway, gave me a blog award named "Super comments award", that shows a panda on a stick of bamboo. I think she thought that's me, cuz pandas are European bears that moved to Asia... (just made up by me). And the chirping bird must be Carina. She's giving me a small twig with leaves, which represent my award. Woohoo. Thanks, Carina :-) You made one chubby panda happy, hehe.

Your award made me think about commenting. If someone blogs about food, people will say: Wow, looks good, you make me hungry. I also do that, because it's the best I can say. And most of the time it's really true. But MKL panda is hungry all the time anyway. So I don't lie. Do you lie, when you comment? Never? Come on, admit it. You haven't read, but you commented anyway. Why did you do it? Either, because you take commenting as a chore/duty or you it's because you read the post, but had no comments, however you want to let the blogger know that you've read their post, so that they know it and in return read your post and comment. Or godforbid not think that you don't read their blog anymore, but actually you do. So comments are intended to keep the bonds of your online friendship intact. To keep the online universe that you've created running normally, so you can have a normal life, of which blogging, tweeting and occasional Facebook comments are a vital part of it. That gives you a way to escape the stress at work or with family, friends or partners. Nothing wrong with that. 50 years ago people escaped into books. 30 years ago it was the TV. And in the last 10 years it's the internet. How many hours do we waste commenting on random stuff? Did you ever think about that? We could do so many things like... milking cows or something. But all we do now is we switch on our laptops and waste our time by... anyway, you know the drill. You're doing the same, don't you? ;-) What happened to us? We're jerking around with cellphones and ipads inods islobs laptops... Even, if we go out and meet friends, all we do is camwhore for the Facebook photos. It's like: Look at us, we had fun... Then sometimes I think: What did you actually do besides taking 200 something photos with random people and weird grimaces? And good job with Photoshop, your skin looks amazing without the pimples I saw in the club, lol.

Ok, so commenting. Sharing your thoughts, opinions, engaging in discussions... that seems to be tedious lately. But I don't care. I'm not a comment whore, I write whatever I feel I want to share. And my blog's traffic is out of control lately and I'm happy about that. I have less comments, but more readers. That good enough for me. Maybe some of you, who follow me for a while now, are not really interested in Taiwan or the World Cup, but there are many people, who are. And I want to cater to both, to you and to them. And in the end, I wanna blog what I want. So, if you don't have interest, just skip, who cares. Comments or no comments, it's up to you. Just don't complain, that's rude. It's not my job to entertain you, however, I'm still happy if you like to read what I have to say. And one more thing I learned through haters blogging, write your blog's comment policy, when you become popular. You will attract commentators, who may not be as pleasant as you wish. I must say, after being attacked and annoyed (and spammed) by annoying individuals, I tightened my commenting rules. As you know, I'm a neat freak, I want my blog clean and spam free... ah, let's not go too far. Back to something pleasant again...

Back to Carina. I think she's one of the best commentators I know. I love to agree or disagree with her. When she comments, she will defend her point passionately, but respectfully. How can you not like her? I admire her for what she has done with her blog. She can write about fashion, celebrities, events or abused women in Afghanistan. She's bolder than me, she will write about religion and politics, state her opinion and people will still love her. I think she's a fearless blogger and I really admire her for that, because I softened up in this regard. Topic-wise, she's a bit like me, both of us write about various things. Anyway, you need to follow Carina, at least put her in your Google Reader and check her blog occasionally. And I guarantee you'll love her. Maybe you'll hate her, too, but then you're too sensitive anyway and you better just stick with girly blogs about make-up. ;-)

Carina, you're someone I'd really like to meet one day. In case I wander around Oslo, I'll ring on your doorbell, k ;) I remember we once had a terrible misunderstanding, but we patched things up very quickly. That's where I truly started to admire you. You deserve more than just "Super commentator" award, Carina, you deserve the "Kind and forgiving person" award, because that's what you are for me.

Ok, so now all this got me thinking. Since so many bloggers are on hiata (my own plural of hiatus), the comments became less here. People are busy these days. That makes me think: To whom I should give the super commenter award now? Ok, let's check some of my most recent posts and see... well...

Here are my Super commentators. I pass the award to these peeps:

LilyChen: She doesn't comment regularly, but when she does, she does it with luv.

Ejann: Cuz she's lovable and adorable and uber-stiletto-cool! Yeah. And she's my sister.

Jo Hill: She's just one of my top fans and I love her blog to bits and adore her big ti... ;-P

Daisy: She's one of the kindest nicest sweetest bloggers on the Internets.

Netster: He's always commenting late, but catches up with all my posts. He's awesome!
Shingo: Because he's an old uncle and needs some praise. Kidding. He's awesome, too!

Amogh: He's a very nice guy, who always gives supportive comments. Thank you :)
Sabrina: Saby has such a big heart, it's visible! ;) Really, I lurve her comments to bits.

Adamantixx: The English poet is one of my dearest followers and gives great comments :)

Karen: She writes long and interesting comments and always puts a smile on my face ;)

Ok, if you accept this award, you can answer the following question to me:

What are your thoughts on blog commenting? Any funny observations?

Oh, and follow Carina, she's the best :-)

Delurk! Tell me why you follow my blog!

At least say hello, if you read my blog silently

I've recently realized that my blog visits and subscriptions increased a lot. I have currently around 130 subscribers (via default and Feedburner). My tracker also shows me, that I have a lot of people, who regularly visit me from Twitter or via a bookmark. I have no idea how many really read my blog, but of course I am very curious! :-) It may be less than I think or way more than I expect, who knows. I have no real idea, so I'm asking you here to delurk! Come out of your holes of anonymity. Raise your hands, admit that you read this blog :-P You can comment below or just vote on the poll, I won't bite. Come on, help me a little here... If I give you some good stuff to read, you can do me this small favor in return. It's easy. Just takes few minutes of your precious time. And then I will know much more about you, my readers. Thanks... :-)

If you can't vote above, please vote here>>


If you can't vote above, please vote here>>


If you can't vote above, please vote here>>

Thanks to everyone who voted and everyone new, who said hi by commenting below. Hello to you, too. And if you mean no harm, welcome to my blog :-)

I'm just about to get started ;-)

Asian Canadians are awesome!

Thanking Karen for her award and thanking my Canadian readers

On the photo: Lee Hyo-ri

I was awarded and tagged by the lovely Canadian blogger Karen (for the second time) and I think it's about time for me to finally do the tag and award some of my blogger friends. I'd like to say a big thank you to my Canadian followers. From what I see on my tracker, I get a lot of traffic from Canada, especially from Kamloops, Vancouver and Toronto. After USA, Taiwan, Singapore and Malaysia, Canada ranks no 5 on my blog visits ranked by countries. And some of my regular commentators and blogger friends are Canadians, most notably Karen, Kym and Julie (who also happen to be Asian), are truly awesome (hence the title of the post). Their blogs are adorable, that's for sure, I recommend you to check them out. Thanks again, Canadians!

Now it's time to do the tag. First the Stylish blog award (click here for award photo):

The rule says: For this tag, state 5 random facts about yourself and award the tag to 5 others.

1 During my trip to Macau, I was addicted to Portuguese egg tarts. My addiction was later cured, when I returned to Taiwan, I got totally hooked on fried dumplings ;-)

2 I think Chuck Norris is a douche. And by that I mean the real person and his political views, not the funny internet character. I love that one ;-)

3 This is why I love Google.

4 I blush very easily, but it doesn't mean I'm shy. My skin reacts to all kinds of weather conditions, it's very sensitive.

5 I also have very sensitive eyes and if I don't wear my sunnies and the weather is hot and sunny, my eyes hurt. Also when I go sightseeing on a sunny day and I take photos of myself without sunnies, my eyes look mostly closed on all the photos, my girlfriend can confirm that. So like someone needs glasses to read, I need my sunnies to survive the sunny days :-)

And now to the Cherry on Top award (click here for award photo). For this tag you have to thank the person who gave you the award, copy the award and post it on your blog, then list three things you love about yourself and post a picture you love (eg: a person you adore etc). Then tag 5 people.

Thanks again, Karen, for tagging me. The three things I love about myself are:

1 I love my open-mindedness when it comes to food. I love all kinds of food and am always open to try new ones. Everywhere I travel, I find some favorite local food and enjoy eating it. That makes my life much easier many times.

2 I love my willingness to listen and understand, be it individuals, groups or societies.

3 I love my ability to speak many languages. I hope one day, when I have children, that they also speak more languages than one.

This is my girlfriend at the Yeliu cape. I love this photo and I love her.

I also chose this photo, because my next post will be about the famous Yeliou cape and Keelung, northern Taiwan's main port. We had a great time there, you'll see soon. Stay tuned.

I'm giving these 2 awards to following people:

1 Kym from http://www.beecreative.ca/
2 Julie from http://popchampagne.blogspot.com/
3 Lily from http://yulengchen.blogspot.com/
4 Jaimie from http://soflawed.blogspot.com/
5 Roxy from http://bludeh.blogspot.com/

If you do the tag or don't, it's really up to you. Just take it easy, k. I won't spy on you, hehe. Although I will continue stalking you on your blogs ;-)

[Photo 1: Source, Photo 2 by MKL, 2010]

Stefanie, you're such a sweetheart!

Dear Stefanie,

my lovely little sis. Tell me honestly, is your life's purpose making others happy?

I remember, when you found my blog about four months ago, your comments always made me smile. We became friends very quickly, because you're such a sweetheart, who befriends everyone instantly. And for a while, you were only following me, but people noticed you. And you quickly became friends with many of my followers and they became your followers, too. And I was very happy about that. For me, your blog is another way for you to make others happy. Everywhere I see you online, be it on your Twitpics or Twitter, I see your smile and kindness radiating. Your smile shines out and warms us. And it especially warms me. I'm happy, that you became friends with my girlfriend and I and that we "adopted" you as our own sister. I do have concerns about your health and I worry about you a lot lately, but you always manage to calm me down. I hope you get healthy soon and I really wish, I could welcome you in Taiwan one day.

Thank you very very much for sending me a lovely card with many kind words and a key chain with my name. That was very sweet of you and made me happy.

Thanks for being you, Stefanie a.k.a. Ms. Stefbunny :-)

[Photo by MKL, 2010]

.musing about my awesome Irish friend.

Or should I say Malaysian? :-P

Sorry guys, but let me bore you with another package I received today. I don't know, how these posts come across to you, but I feel I need thank the one who takes the effort to send me something as nice as Ejann did. I actually planned to write one big posts about all these packages, but then they arrive so randomly. Can you imagine, Manju sent me a package before Christmas 2009! And it still hasn't arrived. I'm not sure who's fault is, but if the package was intercepted somewhere in central Africa, I hope the person, who kept it, liked Manju's sweets, hehe. So far, packages from the Netherlands, Taiwan and most recently from Ireland arrived at a reasonable time. Only Mauritius is different. Hmm... hehehe... No comment ;-)

Let's open Ejann's package and see what's inside:

Two greeting cards, one from Spain and one from Ireland with really sweet words. Then two sweet chocolates, one with the flavor of Schotch and one with Whiskey. Hmm, what's all that about, doc? Wanna make me drunk? Haha... Oh, an the most awesome thing was the keyring. It says lucky old Irish penny. I already put my key on it, will bring with me to Taiwan.

The Whiskey Truffle is yummy, especially the filling. It's soft, but the whiskey flavor is very mild. But it's dark chocolate and I'm more of a milk chocolate fan. I also like white (for future reference :-P). The Butterschotch was very yummy, because it was milky and sweet. You can see the difference in colors. My mum, my sister and I finished both chocolates in 10min, haha.

So, what am I gonna do today? Drink Matcha green tea and read .musings of the corybantic painted nails. It's an awesome blog and the blogger, Ejann a.k.a. the girl in stiletto, is awesome, too. Thank you so much for your sweets. They brightened up my day :-) And thanks for the keyring and all the lovely words you've written for me.

Oh, I have one more thing to add. If you're my reader, please check a blog post about a Valentine's giveaway (saw that via Kym). It says that you have to nominate a female blogger that inspired you and that blogger may get a nice giveaway. I nominated Ejann :-) If you feel she inspired you, I would be happy, if you mention that there. But you can nominate anyone you feel deserves it :-)

Check that post here>>

I've recently realized...

1 ...that I can't stand the snow anymore!

This year's winter is crazayyy! Seriously, we didn't have so much snow in one winter for the last 20 years! It's snowing almost every week and the winter services can't keep up with the removal, because it just doesn't stop. They clear a road and 1h later it's fully covered again. It's a vicious circle. But I had to go to the neighboring small town today, because I had to send some packages to my friends. I hope they arrive in one piece in a week or two :-) We'll see.

2 ...that I have the most awesome girl in the world!

Speaking of packages, I finally received another one, this time from Taiwan. My lovely girl sent me many yummy things, but the main purpose was a SIM card, so I can call her upon my arrival in Taipei. Ain't she sweet? Besides that, she sent me many Taiwanese sweets, Japanese Matcha milk tea and two pairs of chopsticks. I was so happy, because I'm a known chocolate addict and as I have mentioned in one of my previous posts, I'm collecting chopstics. She picked very beautiful ones, that are made of bamboo. That's my favorite material, because it's so easy to hold. Thank you soooo much :-)

3 ...that internet is a very serious business.

Regarding my previous post, I have to tell you, it created a lot of buzz. 41 bit.ly clicks and over 60 comments in one day is a lot for my blog. I know some of you said I should ignore all these haters and I totally understand you. But at least I got some more traffic on my blog because of them, since they had a good laugh on my expense before. And the discussion was good, a lot of different opinions were shared. I know that there will always be ignorant and opinionated people, who will see me as someone I am not. That's up to them and most of the time, I ignore them, but sometimes I don't, hehe. That's what this blog is for. And thanks for all Your support, it means a lot to me. It was an awesome day in my Kafkaesque life :-P

4 ...that some of my most recent followers are really awesome!

Big thanks to my Croatian friend Saša, who has a big passion for Japan and always supports me. Big thanks to the Philippine dearies Krissy and R u s s, who just started to follow recently and always give great comments. And Russ was so kind, to help me with a HTML code I've been looking for. Salamat po :-) And another special thanks to a special lady: Ruma. She's Japanese, but guess what? She was born in Taiwan during WWII! And that makes her my oldest commentator on this blog and I feel very honored. Last but not least, big thanks to two awesome guys: Amogh, my fellow blogger from India and Chris, fellow blogger from Malaysia. Thank you, guys :-)

5... that I only have few more days left to my flight.

And a lot of things go through my mind, like: Wow, everything will change! - I'm gonna fly again! - I'm gonna be soon in Asia again! - No more snow, yay! (it was 30°C today in Taipei!) - I'm gonna be with a woman again! - Will I look good on 'the first date'? - I better brush up my Chinese fast! - I'm gonna be a typical tourist again! - Chinese new year is here! All that goes through my mind and much more... Wow, time really flies...

6... that my mom will never learn, how to hold chopsticks.

I'm sure your mom can hold them better :-)

[All pics by MKL, 2010]

Delicious Dutch delicacies from my awesome friend

I received a package from the Netherlands from my lovely friend Shirley!

I was so happy to see the package today. The postman put it on top of our mail inbox, because it was too big to fit in. I was thinking: OMG! No need to give me something so big. I became a bit shy. Then I ran down and brought the package up to my room. I unwrapped it immediately and saw:

Wow! So many yummy things! Amazing! Thank you, Shirley! What can I say more? Bedankt! The first thing I had to try were the interesting candies. There was all kinds of them and although they look like soft ones, they weren't that soft. But they were very yummy anyway:

Among the mouthwatering candies, I spotted two monkeys and I was so happy. I'm monkey in the Chinese zodiac, so it's "natural", that I love them. Then I remembered my other awesome friend, who is really scared of monkeys. Oh no... Too late now, the pics are uploaded, so...

Another thing about me, that's fairly known, is my love for chocolate. You can't go wrong by giving me chocolate as a gift. I wanna try chocs from all over the world. This one was yummy!

And then there were Dutch mini stroopwafles. Shirley said I need to put them in the microwave for about 10 seconds. And I tell you, they are delicious. Never had these before, so I was surprised how good they taste. The only thing Shirley didn't tell me, is how to eat them:

How would you eat them? :)

Really thanks a lot dear Shirley for this lovely surprise. I'm surely going to read the book on the train and plane, because it's a great story. I watched the trailer of the movie and was amazed immediately. I guess it will be fun to read the book first. And all the sweets are really great, especially the stroopwafles. I love them. I feel very appreciated and things like this make blogging a great experience. I hope your eye gets better soon, because I miss your posts and comments. I hope I can read your blog when I'm in Taiwan :-)

Speaking of sweets and Taiwan, you can check out Lily's new post about sweets, but it's in Chinese.

Ps: Sorry, Manju, for the monkey :-P

Pps: Dear Toothfairy, I will brush my teeth more times today, ok? I promise :-)

Most random post ever!

This will be pretty random, can you handle it?

The routine is back and I'm really sooooo bored sometimes. I mean, in my head there's nothing except randomness. Ok, it wasn't hard to write my last post, because spammers lit[t]er[ed]ally flooded my blog, so I had to take action and send them a strong message! But guess what? Even that post got a spam comment #FML. I guess deleting is the only way to keep them away, Manju's famous secret army of ninjas and monsters failed miserably. I saw them in a back yard down in Solferino eating cake. Well, what do you expect, right? I guess I need to keep deleting spam manually. If that's the price to pay when you're a tinly little tad more popular... well, so be it. But if this blogmestic violence becomes bigger, I will have to lock my comments again -_-

Speaking of locked, look what I've found:


You can find more of this awesome stuff on Lamebook. Those who need something a bit harder, you can check Fuckbook (found this via @sabyj's blog). Sheesh, there it is, I said it! The "F" word. Now my blog will go down the drain #FML. Speaking of these online-books, I just saw some awesome jokes on Manju's Facebook wall and I will straight out post them here, because I'm bold like that today:

Manju's boyfriend took her to a restaurant. The waiter, for some reason, took boyfriend's order first."I'll have the strip steak, medium rare, please." The waiter asked: "Aren't you worried about the mad cow?" "Nah, she can order for herself." And then the fight started...

Manju is standing nude, looking in the bedroom mirror. She is not happy with what she sees and says to her boyfriend: "I feel horrible! I look old, fat and ugly. I really need you to pay me a compliment." "The boyfriend replies: "Your eyesight's damn near perfect." And then the fight started...

Manju and her boyfriend are watching Who Wants To Be A Millionaire while they were in bed. Boyfriend turned to her and said: "Do you want to have sex?" "No," she answered. Boyfriend then said: "Is that your final answer?" Manju didn't even look at him this time, simply saying "Yes." So boyfriend said: "Then I'd like to phone a friend."And that's when the fight started...

The biggest joke for me was: Manju doesn't have a boyfriend [as for 6.1.2009 at 5am in Solferino]. This was all posted by a funny friend of Manju's named GREAT.VIKIUS. I hope he doesn't mind becoming famous because of me. Well, who knows, maybe that's what he intended to become by posting those jokes on Manju's wall.

Speaking of Manju, I recieved her Christmas card two days ago! Hello? Christmas is over like... so long ago! Duh... and OMG, I am not sure whether the Mauritian postmen are lazy or weather the card was stuck in Zimbabwe for a week. Or maybe our postmen here are slobs. No idea, but each of these possibilities would not surprise me... but well, it will forever remain a mystery why this card traveled so long.

[click to enlarge]

Have you seen what Manju wrote? She picked on people (actually mice) who are midgeter than her. That's midgestic violence! I studied this card thoroughly and I figured out that Manju has a split personality: There's a good and a bad Manju [a berry berry bad Manju!]:

• The bad one uses a black pen and taunts midgets, has an evil laugh
  
• The good one uses a blue pen and tries to justify the bad one's evil actions
  

Seriously disturbing, don't you think? I wonder which Manju will comment on my blog today. *trembling, biting nails, sweating...

Speaking of Christmas. What did you have for dinner? I had chicken:

Socks are such a turn-off, don't you think? I prefer it without socks. FTW!

Besides eating chicken with socks (<-double-meaning), I watched TV on Christmas and I saw something that really hurt my Asian feelings. Those damn ang moh can't stop to bully us Asians!


I will be soon in Asia, so you can be sure, that I'm trying to prepare myself well to have a smooth transition. In this case this warning won't apply to me, I don't have any grandmas. If those Asian youngsters don't believe me and still want to kill my grandma [a seriously disturbing thought >_<], I will just tell them:

Leave my grandma alone!

If you want to kill someone...

Alright! I wanna be frank here. The photo above reminded me that I haven't been with a woman for a long while now... Ok, chances are good that I will be with one soon, but I try to be strong, you know. I do my best and most of the time I succeed. But then, I can only deny it soooo much, because the Universe has a weird way to slap me in the face, usually in a very weird way, as it's obvious here, when I was just about to write an untrue comment:


I better stop here, this is going nowhere. I tag Shingo, Manju, Great.Vikius, Nahl, ShAKirA CHOONG, Bananazക and Superman to write a random post with random things and link back to my post because I invented this game. And if you do that you'll get the award Random Blogger from me. Ain't that something? FTW, people, FTW!!!

On a side note: Lily did the 10 honest things about her post, please check that out and get to know her better. And I also did a post on Andhari's blog, check here. Thanks.

Do you have any comments? :P

[Photos: 1 by Lamebook, 2 by Manju and my scanner, 3 Lily, 4 probably on HuffPost, 5 probably on RCA, 6 My magic fingers]

10 honest things about me

Welcome to 2010! How was the transition for you? 5 pounds? 10 pounds? Haha... Then you're like me. Let's work out, babes! These holidays are always brutal, because there's no ban on cookies. I wish there was one. Argh... Let's distract ourselves and focus on my new post: Numero uno of 2010. Isn't it fun to start off with a little bit of honesty? Toothy was tagged last year and she wrote 10 honest stories about her- [puppet collection] -self, be sure to check that post, because Halloween is just around the corner. Sort of! :P She awarded me, because she's got great taste and intelligence, good common sense and a pure heart. ^_~ So I'm supposed to write some honest stuff about myselvz. Alrighty, here we go:

01 I can keep secrets. Therefore a lot of people come to me and confess a lot of things. I'm so full of secrets I might burst one day and spill out everything :P Nooo.. Don't worry, my friends. Your secrets are safe with me. ;)

02 I get watery eyes, if I watch an intensely emotional movie with a touching story. Some examples would be Schindler's list, La Vita è Bella, Ghost, Sixth Sense, Apocalypto, Spring Summer Autumn Winter ...and Spring, E.T. and so on...

03 Sometimes in the morning, I allow my cat to hop on my bed. She'd usually go under the comforter, where she purrs like crazy. We cuddle a little and then I go out of bed... and she usually follows.

04 I hate when people say I'm obsessed with Asian women. Yes, many Asian women are beautiful to me, but I'm not obsessed. Simple as that. I'm just connected to this part of the world, it's just so interesting to me there. And guess what? I'm flying to Asia next month. Yay! :-)

05 I like to keep and store stuff. Be it old letters from my pen pals in the 1990s, be it letters and gifts I received from my ex-girlfriends or just random stuff from my trips. I even keep newspapers I bought in Singapore, Malaysia, HK and Qatar. Anyone reads Arabic here? I just can't throw away things that have some memory attached to it. Same goes for my computer, I save a lot of stuff: Pics, music, videos... Should do a clean-up, now that I think about it.

06 I have a 'problem' with chocolate. It's the only thing that I seriously can get addicted to (Manju, you understand me, right?) No kidding. When I was a bit younger, I would eat 1 chocolate a day. Recently I learnt to control myself and I'm able not to eat a chocolate for few days. But then the craving becomes so strong that when I get one, I usually eat the whole one in a very brief time. What can I do? It just tastes so damn good -_-

07 Although I love my two sisters, I always wished to have a brother. It sucks to be the big brother, I never had anyone to look up to. I had to figure out many things by myself. And in the past, my sisters would depend on me and listen to my wise words. Now, being in their twenties, their boyfriends are more important than me. Nobody listens to the big bro any more -_- So I had to adopt sisters Selvy and Stefanie and I'm happy that at least they listen to me :-)

08 I prefer Pepsi over Coca Cola, but I started to like Pepsi just this year. It's never too late, friends ;-)

09 I 'had something' with a woman 8 years older than me. ;)

10 Sometimes, when I drive, I talk to people, be it the ones in other cars or people walking on the street. It's more like blurting out random stuff like: "Damn, will you move already? Who did you bribe to get the driving licence?" Or to some pedestrians, who look at me, I'd say: "Why are you looking at me? Do you expect a cookie from me or something?" Of course these people don't hear me, because my radio is on, hehe. It's just my way to release, because being stuck in traffic sometimes really makes me tense.

I give this award to every one of my readers, but I'm just tagging some. I tag Lily, Stefanie, Shingo, Manju, Ejann, Sharon, Steph and Pinkpurplelizard. Of course you can ignore this tag, if this post doesn't appeal to you. I do this, because I just want to be a law-abiding citizen blogger in 2010 ;-)

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Alright. Hope that my [brutal] honesty didn't bore you. Thank you for reading and your feedback is appreciated :-) On a side note: I put Google Friend Connect on my left sidebar, if you added yourself to other bloggers, please add yourself to me, it'll make my day :-) And because one of the new people on my blog asked me how to follow my blog, I wrote a post that explains how to use Google Reader to follow my blog. Here's my How to use Google Reader post for those who still don't use this most convenient way to follow multiple blogs at one place.

Thank you, MKL's peeps of 2009!

Let's click on some links, shall we?

2009 is over! The year nearly ended. Yep. That's all folks. Pack your bags and get ready for a new ride, a new journey: 2010! The Tens are here. Woohoo! Are you excited or anxious? I'm excited! :-)

But before we start with a new year, let me say my sincerest thank you to all the people who left foot prints on My Kafkaesque life. I will especially thank those of you, who came at least few times and made me remember you. And let's see from which countries you came here (next year I shall compare and see how the list changed).

✰ My dear readers, followers, commentators, let me tell you:

Thank you! 谢谢! Danke! Bedankt! 謝謝!
Terima kasih! Salamat po! 고마워! Takk!

✰ My commentators come from these awesome countries:

1. MALAYSIA [20]: A Gust of Wind, Allison, Ai Shiang, Ejann, Envoy, Erny, Icedteamonster, Izso, Jerine, Jessica, Lily Riani, Kyh, Netster, Pinkpurplelizard, Sabrina, Sharon, Stefanie, Wenwen, Wenny, Zewt
2. SINGAPORE [10]: Adeline, Dawn Yang, Della, Dhar, Nashe, Rinaz, Roxy, Shingo, Vampie, Ying Zi
3. USA [9]: Amy Star, Bradley, Floreta, Mystery Lady, Sheri, Steph, Tricia, Van, Victoria
4. THE PHILIPPINES [6]: Angel, E, Margee, Mel, Rica, Leah
5. BRITAIN [5]: Adamantixx, Lai San, Prometheus, Vincent, ZACL
6. MAURITIUS [4]: Angele, JaiMie, Kit, Manju
7. GERMANY [2]: Justrecently, Junjie
8. INDONESIA [2]: Andhari, Selvy
9. PAKISTAN [2]: Desi, Nahl
10. NETHERLANDS [1]: Shirley
11. TAIWAN [1]: LilyChen
12. S. KOREA [1]: Hwan
13. THAILAND [1]: Kanchana
14. NORWAY [1]: Carina
15. JAMAICA [1]: Kirk
16. CANADA [1]: Karen
    
17. AUSTRALIA [1]: Sarah
    

*OMG, Malaysia should give me a free PR status :P

✰ Special gift to some of you commentators:

I thought of making tiny.urls for some of you. Those shortened links are very useful when you tweet and link to your blog. I first saw Shirley using this for her blog http://tinyurl.com/toothfairynotes. These links never expire, so once you have one, it stays yours forever and you can use them everywhere. Mostly people use them on Twitter, but you can use them on your blog, Facebook or anywhere you wish. I first did some for Stefanie, here http://tinyurl.com/msstef and here http://tinyurl.com/MsStefanie. Then I decided to make some for the rest of my dear bloggers. I didn't make these for all of you, either because of lacking ideas or your blog URL was very short already. So here are my creations for some of you, hope you guys like it [*to copy the URL, first mark it and then press Ctrl + C]: Lovely Andhari http://tinyurl.com/ndeesblog - awesome Manju http://tinyurl.com/manjugone - incredible Sharon http://tinyurl.com/sharonsworld - cool Jerine http://tinyurl.com/jerinestyle - cute Mel http://tinyurl.com/melscorner - witty Shingo http://tinyurl.com/shing0 - super funny Jessica http://tinyurl.com/j3ssica and another candy http://tinyurl.com/pussica :P - dear sis Selvy http://tinyurl.com/selvy - Japan lover Envoy http://tinyurl.com/TEFAfar - beautiful Adeline http://tinyurl.com/adelinelee and another for you http://tinyurl.com/leolady - lovely Van http://tinyurl.com/myinsanity - dearest amiga Lai San http://tinyurl.com/supersan and a shorter one http://tinyurl.com/LiSan - cool Nashe http://tinyurl.com/lanashty - gracious JaiMie http://tinyurl.com/soflawed - super kind Victoria http://tinyurl.com/vpaege - lovely Angel http://tinyurl.com/angelgoddess - awesomely cool Ejann http://tinyurl.com/ejannz - funny Sabrina http://tinyurl.com/sabyj and last but not least, two awesome links for beloved Lily http://tinyurl.com/LilyChen and http://tinyurl.com/yulinga

*Hope some of you guys find my creations useful ;-)

✰ Special thanks to my top commentators:

Bradley, Junjie, Sharon, Adamantixx, Jerine, Andhari, Manju, Shirley, Selvy, Angel, Lily, Shingo, Floreta, Stefanie, Ejann, Carina, Rica, ZACL, Nashe and Prometheus.

And if you want to see a year in review Google Wave style, check this link. It'll lead you to an awesome short video about the most interesting events in 2009. Enjoy. And I wish you a

Happy and prosperous New year 2010!

See you soon again!

Your MKL

[Photo 1 by Promex, Photo 2 by MKL 2005, Photo 3 by SicaGo]

Arti Sahabat by Netster

Malaysian friend's awesome music on my blog

My fellow Malaysian blogger Netster a.k.a. Jong Fui Fa, accidentally tweeted a link to an old post of his, and since I'm a busy body, I followed that link and found a video of a beautiful song he sang. The song was originally recorded by an Indonesian pop rock band Nidji [more info here] and it's called Arti Sahabat ["The meaning of a best friend"]. I loved that song instantly. And I thought it'd be a great way to promote my dear friend's blog and also give you the pleasure to enjoy some awesome music from Indonesia, wut wut! Check the two videos below, first one is the cover version from Netster:

Here's the original Arti Sahabat by Nidji:

Music connects people! High five! Enjoy my friends' art.

Winter blues: Fairy tale gone bad

Or how my blog followers gave me a nightmare!

Ok, let's start from scratch. It's damn cold here! Seriously! Yesterday was -18°C at night and during the day time, it wasn't really better, it was -15°C. If you open the front door, you feel like you opened the fridge.

It's really frustrating. So what does MKL usually do, when he's stuck inside the house? Well, let me tell you what I did yesterday. I laid on the couch and covered myself with a blanket, drank tea and watched TV... and then I suddenly became drowsy and started to imagine (maybe I was dreaming) how good it would be, if I could invite my followers and fellow bloggers to come and visit me. I thought I will be blessed with joy and happiness, but instead this happened:

Adamantixx's beard froze, so he couldn't really talk, while Shirley felt so cold, she wrapped herself in a sweater and totally ignored me. Guess sucking that straw was more fun! O_o

Manju was first so excited about snow, but once here, she started complaining and left. Not even hot chocolate could keep her around. And Stefanie hung my beloved snowman! O_o

I couldn't keep Netster and Envoy in the house, they had to go out and take a dip in the nearby creek with the company of Angele and JaiMie. I was totally ignored! Was it fun? O_o

I couldn't keep Zewt inside the house either. Once he saw the famous Slovenian ski-brand Elan, he had to buy skis and learn to ski-jump. Shingo, on the other hand, at least helped me to clear the snow, but my neighbours weren't amused! Did you have wear those wings? O_o

I was happy to be visited by Lily, but when she said she's well-prepaired for the winter here, I wasn't expecting this! And Izso brought his sleigh from Sabah and enjoyed his day! O_o

Lucky for me, not everyone ignored me. Jessica and Ejann didn't want to go out of the house, but while Jessica destroyed my precious floor with her weird shoes, Ejann ruined my beautiful balcony with her killer-heels. It's now full of holes! Who'll pay for that, ladies? O_o

After being inside for so long, I decided to check upon my amigas Lai San and Dawn. While Lai San was busy to clear the snow on back of my house, Dawn started to chase after Santa and upset my grandma. You can be sure granny scolded me later and pulled my ear! O_o

A while later, I finally found Andhari and Mel. And you know, my dream was really close to reality, because a spammer somehow found his way in my head. But lucky for me, my two awsome friends hunted the bugger down and embarrassed him! Phew, thanks ladies! O_o

And at last, while walking in town, I found Jamaipanese watching his favourite Japanese variety show. I guess those cute girls were more interesting than my company! Thanks O_o
And then I woke up all sweaty! I needed few minutes to get my senses back and I thought: "Oh no, I will never invite my fellow bloggers to visit me during the winter. It's a recipe for a disaster. I need to survive this winter alone and you guys better stay where you are and do what you do best: blog!" :P

Happy holidays and have a lot of fun!

Ho ho ho from MKLaus

*I wanted to joke with more of you, but didn't find more funny pics. Sorry to those who weren't mentioned ;-)

[Photo sources: 1 by MKL, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16]

Greetings from Mauritius

Yay! I'm so happy today. My dear and lovely bloggy friend Manju (from the blog where She's Constantly Gone) sent me a postcard from her beautiful country Mauritius. Look!

We actually swapped postcards, so I hope she will get my card from Slovenia soon. I really wonder when mine will arrive at her place. I hope it won't take so long, I have my reasons ;)

I must say that before I knew Manju, I didn't know a lot about Mauritius [check Wiki]. I knew it's an island nation located somewhere in the Indian ocean. I'd probably look somewhere near the Maldives, because they're a bit more known. Many people go to Maldives on vacation here, but less so to Mauritius. So when you look on the world map, you can easily remember that Mauritius is closer to Africa, actually right next Madagascar and the Maldives are closer to Asia, actually right next to India.

Ok, so thru Manju I learned a lot about Mauritius. Here are some random facts, based on my own personal experiences (so please don't sue me, if you experience something different):

1 Mauritians are very friendly, besides Manju, I got to know Angele and Jaimie, two lovely Mauritian bloggers, who are always very kind and funny. Check out their blogs.

2 Never offer cake to Mauritians! They'll take it very seriously and they'll let you know many many times that you need to keep your promise [*yes, that was on the postcard, too :P].

3 Mauritian kids will stare at you like an owl. You don't belive it? Read here.

4 Cakes in the shape of the famous game Pac man are totally in there now, see here.

5 Mauritians are very pragmatic. If the stamp doesn't fit the postcard, the will fold it over the edge and to the other side. I shall name that a lolstamp (see the pic above).

Thanks again, Manju, for the lovely card. Now I just hope mine will be delivered to you in one piece and with no lolstamps, hehe. This was fun. Hope others do that some time, too.

Thank you for blogging award 2009

Today I received a blog award from the incredible Andhari. Yay! Thank you so much, my lovely friend, I feel honored and appreciated :D Now the rule says, I should tag 4 people and write at least 3 reasons why I pass the award to them. Well, it's always hard to pick someone and then someone else may be wondering why I haven't picked them. Tsk, tsk, tsk (as Mel would say). So I chose to pass this award to two of my favorite bloggers who I met most recently: They are just funny and adorable. I decided not to mention their names, cause that wouldn't be fun, would it? :P You can try and guess who they are by the words and pics below. :)

No 1: I think she deserves this award, because she's very funny, be it her blog posts or her comments, she always cracks me up. She's positive and supportive and she's so likeable. Who wouldn't wanna be her friend? Maybe a chocolate bunny, but only because she'd eat it :P Well, her blog is very cute and there's so much more about it than just chocolate and lolcatz. :P I'm so happy, that I came across her blog. If you wanna check it out, click on the photo below.


No 2: I think she deserves this award, because she's true and honest and her followers feel that, so it's no wonder that she has soooo many of them. And she's also very funny, especially when she catches spammers. :D She says she doesn't want to accept blog awards yet, so I hope she takes this little post as a token of my appreciation and my way to give her back some happiness she brings to me :) If you wanna check out her blog, click on the photo below.


Have you guessed right, before you checked, who the two bloggers are? ^_^

[Photo 1 Source: 1, 2][Photo 2 Source: 1, 2]