I was planning to write about this but Nanny Wen just wrote such a great post about it that I’ve decided to link it.
The gist of it is that her dog Scruffy went missing.
After four worrying days of searching, both physically and through social media, Scruffy was finally found. And Twitter was the primary tool that helped.
I take a personal interest in this because Scruffy used to be the Goonfather’s dog. He then became my dog by default when I got together with the Goonfather.
A few years back, we moved to a landed home near Nanny Wen and she would come hang out with us a lot. She would bring him home and take care of him during the times we were away. Or just for fun.
That was how she got her nick, Nanny Wen, by the way.
We realised that Scruffy was a lot happier with her. What happened was that Scruffy was miserable in our new home. We had a new parental rule dictating that he had to stay outside the house, in the garden, at all times.
Being an attention-seeking dog, he needs to be around people 24/7. Every night, from our bedroom, the Goonfather and I could hear Scruffy howling mournfully and my heart would break.
So we decided to let Scruffy stay with Nanny Wen for good. Her family also loved Scruffy, so it was a great solution. And since we lived so nearby, we could see him any time we wanted.
And then we moved house again but Scruffy stayed, so he officially became Nanny Wen’s dog and they lived happily ever after!
After so many weeks of absence, I actually miss Gamer Girl Friday. I mean, I really miss talking about games and stuff.
Of course, it’s kinda hard to talk about games and stuff when one doesn’t have time to play games anymore.
It’s actually sad. When I sit down to test a new game now, I actually feel guilty. Like a naughty child playing a game instead of doing homework. And I’m looking at the clock every five minutes, my heart filling with dread and panic at time flying past with so much other work undone.
I also feel guilty if I don’t play games. Because then I can’t write reviews for GGF.
Which is absolutely nuts. I think I need a drink. And a hug.
Anyway, in honour of my lack of time in being a proper gamer girl, today’s issue brings you stories stolen from all over the place.
Swordplay is my pesky li’l bro who spends all his time playing time-wasting games. To make him a little bit more useful, I’m sitting on him and making him recommend one fun and simple web-based game each week.
Actually, I don’t need to review these time wasters, do I? Like, they’re short games and they’re time wasters. You play them because you have 20 minutes to spare and you’re bored. You don’t need a review to tell you whether they’re worth playing!
Microsoft has announced two very exciting developments for the Halo franchise.
First up is the Halo Legends, a collection of seven anime shorts set in the Halo universe, created by anime big names: Bones, Casio Entertainment, Production I.G., Studio4 C, and Toei Animation. Overseeing the project is creative director Shinji Aramaki (Appleseed).
I’ve never been a Halo fan but I like anime, so this could be my ticket to fandom!
Next up is Halo Waypoint, a new destination for Halo fans on Xbox LIVE. This is where you will get the latest Halo news and content, from podcasts to trailers to screenshots. There will also be challenges and rankings. Basically all the fluff that will thrill gamers.
Both Halo Legends and Halo Waypoint will be released in Fall 2009, which, in Singapore-speak, means Q4 2009.
It’s kinda funny for me because I actually played Evony (previously known as Civony) for a month or so when it started and I noticed how the ads got progressively provocative.
I’m sure you’ve seen at least one Evony ad, if not a gadzillion. They’re freaking everywhere.
Ooh, the previous contest was like a million years ago.
Yeah, yeah, that’s how long I haven’t published an issue of GGF. It was a nice break from gaming.
Yes, even gamers need a break, especially when said gamers play games more for the purpose of reviewing them than for having fun.
So, the winner of the million-year contest vying for the coolest prize of an Xbox 360 laser pointer LED keyring, is… rn!!!!
Woot.
Somehow, it just kinda dampens the announcement when the winner’s name is something as short as two letters and and can be pronounced in two syllables.
It’s, like, congratulations, rn!
Um… that’s all?
Nevertheless congratulations!!
rn says that she wants to “point the laser pointer at SAFFC. With his aggressiveness, he’s like one of my cats, but with worse language. Maybe his attention span will be like one of my cats! Ooooh shiny red spot!”
I’m sure that all doesn’t make sense to you, but never you mind. Onward to the next contest!
This is all over the Singapore blogosphere. A group of bloggers recently set up this government-endorsed association in the name of uniting and educating Singapore bloggers. Discussion over it has been free-flowing. Most of it hilarious.
Check out these recent tweets by prominent Singapore bloggers in response to the association.
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In response to Cowboy Caleb‘s challenge, I extend this invitation:
In one of my recent twitters, I posed the question of how to gauge an elderly person’s eligibility to be offered a seat on the MRT or bus.
Nobody answered my twitter, of course. Nobody ever responds to my twitters via Twitter.
But reader Mike M did answer the question in my blog comments, so I’m throwing it out here to get more answers from twitter-shy people.
First, the question.
How do you know who to give your seat to on the MRT or bus?
The loose guideline is what’s printed on signs: “Please offer this seat to someone who needs it more than you do.”
We know that “someone who needs it more than you do” typically refers to the elderly, the pregnant and the handicapped, and maybe little toddlers who are wont to topple over if the train brakes too fast.
Photo by Beate W
Yes, most of the time, it is easy enough to identify persons belonging to the above categories.
But what about borderline cases?
You know they exist.
In the first place, how old is “elderly”? 40? 50? 60?
I don’t know what’s the average age at which a person really needs a seat each time he gets on the train.
40? 50? 60?
What makes it even more complicated is that it’s hard to tell people’s age these days because more and more people are getting younger as they get older.
Photo by Gustavo Bueso Padgett
Besides, some “elderly” folks take better care of their healths than us young ‘uns. They don’t go clubbing or play computer games overnight like we do, so they are able to wake up every morning at 6 am to do qigong.
If old people are healthier than youngsters, do they really “need it more than we do”?
I know there is no fixed rule and we’re supposed to make intuitive judgement calls case by case. But what about offending people?
Yes, offending people.
There was this case on the MRT once: Someone had offered his seat to a pregnant lady. The lady glared at him and said, “I’m not pregnant, you doofus.” (Not in those exact words, but thereabouts.) She just happens to have a very large belly.
So much embarrassment is at stake when you offer your seat to the wrong person!
What if I offered my seat to this man whom I think is old because his hair is all white and his face is all wrinkled? And then he feels slighted because he is not actually old but just suffers from an unfortunate case of premature aging? And he has wrinkled skin because he sun tans too much and doesn’t use sunblock and moisturiser?
Also, there are people who are kind of prideful and hate to be thought of as weak, so if you offered your seat to them, they’d hate you.
Personally, I don’t get into situations like that very much because when I’m on the train, I’m usually buried in a book or in my DS Lite, oblivious to my surroundings.
Well, I can’t help it if I get absorbed in my own activities to relieve the boredom of commuting!! I think it’s for the better, anyway. Then I don’t have to suffer a dilemma every time a borderline case boards the train.
But I’m not 100% selfish! I have given up my seat a few times when I happened to not have a book with me and encountered clear-cut cases who really needed my seat.
What about you, then? Do you give up your seat at all and how do you deal with borderline cases?
Okay, so I just signed up for a Twitter account. What that did was further my belief that we are now smack in the middle of the Me Age.
Two hundred years later, history students will read in their textbooks: “The year 2000 marked the start of the Me Age with the proliferation of Internet activity. The possibilities for self-publishing created a social phenomenon that took the world by storm as increasing individuals bought a piece of Internet real estate to advertise one predominant product — themselves.”
I mean, this is totally what is happening and I do not exempt myself from this mounting horror.
In 1996, I made my very first website for my IRC community. I had photos and funny blurbs of all my channel regulars. I wrote a witty article extolling the virtues of IRC. The website’s purpose was to show off my web designing skills (which was then a big deal), my writing skills and my sense of humour.
In 1997, I made my first personal website. Its purpose was to glorify myself and shout to the whole world that an individual such as I existed.
And, you know, that tradition of narcissism continues till today. But I think it’s all good because, really, it’s not only about me.
People who have their own websites and blogs aren’t only saying “look at ME”. They’re also expressing their individuality, creativity and talents through the design of their site, through their written words, through the photographs that they themselves have taken. Creativity must be shared with the world.
But twitter is another matter altogether.
What the hell is twitter?
When I first started seeing it on all my friends’ blogs, my reaction was something like, “Har? Can eat or not one?”
I didn’t get an account because it seemed stupid to me. Like, does anyone care what you were doing at exactly 4.26 pm last Friday? Honestly, no.
And if you must tell the whole world that you are, right this very moment, enjoying your char kuay teow, why must you put an extra box in your blog to say that? Why can’t you just post a one-line blog entry instead?
So, I finally signed up today to see for myself what all the fuss is.
I have posted my first update, clicked all over the site and read a few strangers’ rants.
And I still don’t really get it.
Twitter is totally the spokesperson for the “Me Culture”. In the little pink and blue boxes that are fast invading more and more corners of the Internet, we see nothing more than shouts for attention.
“Look at me! I just did my laundry and wiped the kitchen counter clean!! Can you beat that???”
What the hell? What the hell?
Where is the creativity? The entertainment value? The thing that will make people go, “Ahhh… that was worth my two seconds reading it.”?
And you thought the narcissism of personal web pages and cam whoring couldn’t get any worse.
To all my friends who have twitter, don’t fret. Even though I think twitter is stupid, I still love you and I will read your twitters because you’re my friend.
But allow me to ask you this:
Do you think I should just STFU and get with twitter already?
![[Gamer Girl Friday]](http://www.sheylara.com/images08/gamergirlfriday.jpg)
![[A toddler]](http://www.sheylara.com/images08/0328toddler.jpg)
![[An old man]](http://www.sheylara.com/images08/0328oldman.jpg)
![[A woman practising Qigong]](http://www.sheylara.com/images08/0328qigong.jpg)
![[Pregnant]](http://www.sheylara.com/images08/0328pregnant.jpg)