July 31, 2008

7 Random Things About Me

Lucky SevenThis is an overdue meme which was tagged by the very man who hardly does memes himself, Kamigoroshi. I knew I had to reciprocate something so rare. It took me a while to search these seven random things about myself. It's not something deep nor exactly soul-searching, but it might give you another look into who I am. Here they are, in no particular order:



  1. I have a tendency to talk to myself. It's a childhood habit I never outgrew. I would imagine myself as another person, and actually talk aloud to myself as a third person. I stopped talking aloud to myself years ago, but I still run conversations in third person in my head before doing anything. And when I did something I shouldn't have, or didn't do something I should have, after it's over, I'd run the conversation in my head as to what I should or should not have said. Sometimes I wonder if I'm schizophrenic.
  2. I'm quite a paranoid person. No, I'm not talking about aliens or other beings outside of Earth. I'm wary of my surroundings, of the people around me. I'd rather walk the extra two block with lights on, than half a block with little light. I'm not saying that this guarantees that I'll be safe all the time. The sixth sense in me tells me that it's better to be safe than sorry.
  3. I'm a worrywart. It comes with being paranoid. I get scared of things quite often. I worry that something will happen if we take that risk which I'd deem unnecessary. It's a wonder my blood pressure doesn't hit the roof at times.
  4. I'm terribly fickle-minded. It's difficult for me to stick to something I'd like for long. I tend to move on to something else very quickly. It's not a trait I'm proud of.
  5. For a fickle person, I'm incredibly loyal when it comes to food. If it's a dish I like, I can have it for many consecutive meals and not get sick. Once, I had steamed tofu with a bit of meat and mushrooms on it for dinner, cooked the same way, for an entire week. Just because I liked it. And still do. I can watch a show I like over and over again and not get bored. I can't tell you how many times I've watched the entire seasons of How I Met Your Mother, Will and Grace, House, etc. Up to the point where I can recite almost every line on the show. Even Tim is sick of hearing sitcom laughter from the computer :p
  6. I used to suffer from trichotillomania. It's an obsessive-compulsive disorder where I'd yank out my hair when I was stressed out. It got so bad, that to a point, I had obvious bald patches at the sides of my head (where the sideburns would be), and you'd see tufts of grass-like hairs on the top of my head, because that's where new hair was growing (I pulled a lot out). I don't do it anymore though. I transferred that OCD-ness to something else - twisting tissue or the corners of pillows with my thumb and index finger.
  7. I tend to be protective of people shorter and/or smaller-sized than I am. I don't know why. It's not discriminatory; it's just one of those things coded in my genes or something. It's instinctive.

I'm not going to tag anyone for today, but if you would like to do the meme, by all means go ahead. I'd love to read that seven things about you.

July 25, 2008

Birthday Love

To the love of my life,

Tim's Birthday 2008

Happy birthday, darlin'. You bring me joy like I've never known.

I love you.

Doing The Karen Cheng

Lookit me, I'm a-doing the Karen Cheng!

Doing The Karen Cheng

Me in my pink monkey jammies, purple bed socks, pink bedroom slippers and purple hot water bottle. Definitely not my best, but then again, it's the pose ;)

July 22, 2008

It's Not A Good Day

- when you burnt the pot heating up skinny milk in the morning.
- when it's that time of the month, and you're having bad cramps
- when you are about to head to the city, and realised you almost got on the wrong platform.
- when you head home from the city, and realised you got on the wrong platform AGAIN (really, is it so hard to announce the change of platforms on the PA?)
- when the pot you tried so hard to scrape the burn bits off all day got burnt again just because you forgot you left the pot on the electric cooker while boiling water.

Yet, it was all so easily forgotten after you come home from an awesome movie, Mamma Mia, and all you can do is hum "Dancing Queen" and shake your booty all night.

July 18, 2008

A Guide to Setting Up Domain Name From Godaddy on Blogger

This post was requested by Zewt, on custom domain name setup for Blogger using domain names purchased at Godaddy.com.

If you've purchased your own domain name, congratulations! Nothing like your own lil' dot com on that wide space called the Internet, eh? If, like me, you would like to continue to Blogger as your web host but using your own domain, well, that works too if you're on relatively tight budget. I would still recommend you to move to your own web host and to Wordpress though. I'm still searching for the best deals on web hosts, and when I do, I'll be moving my blogs over to Wordpress.

But for now, Blogger works just fine, and if you'd still like to hang on to Blogger for a bit, here's how to set up your custom domain name on your blog using Blogger.

According to Blogger.com, to use a custom domain name on your blog would be to
Buy your own domain, and create a CNAME record for it to point to ghs.google.com (unless you buy the domain through Blogger).
Enter your domain in the 'Custom Domain' option on the Settings | Publishing tab.

You can read the full details here, which I highly recommend, but in the interest of saving time, I've included screenshots of how to set up your custom domain name on Blogger. Bear in mind that the instructions below are specified for domains purchased from Godaddy.com, but the general settings, like creating the CNAME record, etc, would be the same.

DNS stands for Domain Name System, and a DNS server determines what site a given address takes you to. So far, you have a domain name but none of the servers on the internet know what to do with it yet. To take care of this, you need to create a CNAME record for your domain with the DNS, associating your domain with ghs.google.com.

You can also read the full details of the setup here. I'll be using the instructions as shown in Blogger.com, and include screenshots which would hopefully aid you in your domain name setup.


GODADDY DOMAIN NAME SETUP

1. Log in to your account at www.godaddy.com
Godaddy Login

2. Open the Domains tab and select My Domains. You'll be directed to the Domain Manager page.
Godaddy Domain

3. Click the domain that you'd like to use with your blog. (here you will see the three domain names which I already have. For explanation's sake, I shall be using www.beautyholicsanonymous.com)
Godaddy Domain Manager
Click to enlarge

4. Click the Total DNS Control And MX Records link at the bottom of the section entitled Total DNS.
Godaddy DNS Control
Click to enlarge

5. Click Add New CNAME Record in the box labelled CNAMES (aliases). If you've already created a CNAME record for your blog's address, click the pencil icon next to the existing CNAME record. (The reason I blanked the words out is that I've already created a CNAME record for the domain. Before you add a new CNAME record for your domain, this is what you should see).
Godaddy CNAME
Click to enlarge

6. For the Name, enter only the subdomain of the address you want to use for your blog. For example, if you picked www.mydomain.com as your address, enter www here.
7. Enter ghs.google.com as the Host Name. Specify a TTL or use the default setting of 1 hour.
Godaddy CNAME Alias
Click to enlarge

8. Click OK, and then click OK again.

You should now see the added CNAME record.

Godaddy CNAME 2
Click to enlarge

That's pretty much it for your domain setup on Godaddy.


BLOGGER.COM SETUP

1. Go to Blogger.com, click on Settings on the blog in which you bought the domain name for, and then click on Publishing.
Blogger Publishing
Click to enlarge

2. Click on Switch to Advanced Settings.
3. Type in your new domain name.
Blogger Publishing Advanced Settings
Click to enlarge

4. Click on Save Settings.

If nothing goes wrong, your domain should be up and running within 5 to 10 minutes. When you click on your blogspot address, you'd be directed to your new address instead.

There ya go, your very own domain name on Blogger. Just holler if you have any questions, or faced any problems.

Good luck!

July 15, 2008

Good Night, Sweet Pups, Goodnight

This has got to be the CUTEST thing I've seen in ages. A man singing his pups good night.




Click here if you cannot view the embedded video.

Beetrice, you reckon Patches will do that too when you sing? :p

July 14, 2008

Tweaking The Codes

I've been spending the morning tweaking the blog. I'm not changing the header or actual layout just yet but to standardise the font sizes of the posts without having to manually change them on Blogger. When I first started blogging, I was so green that I didn't take into consideration about font size and text standardisation. I left the CSS as it was. Changing the codes was easy. What happened after that, was not.

Good thing about tweaking the blog: From now on, I can blog from anywhere (mobile phone, iPod Touch, etc) without having to worry about manually aligning the text and changing the font sizes.

Bad thing about tweaking the blog: In standardising the font sizes, the previous posts' fonts are now too small, and I have over 500 posts to edit. Gah.

July 13, 2008

Alarming Ride

The incessant beep of an alarm from goodness knows where on a 30-minute train ride was most unsettling. Even more so when thoughts of suicide bombing flashed through your mind. It was, after all, very close to World Youth Day. People of every nation flocking to Sydney (and then to Melbourne). Every beep made my heart skip a beat. For 30 minutes, that was one heck of a ride.

Our final stop has never looked more welcoming.

July 11, 2008

Finally Relaunched the Wedding Blog

I've finally back on track on the wedding blog, after months of neglect after the wedding. I've also changed the theme and layout, which was about time. I can no longer call it a step by step to our wedding now that that's over. Nor can I call it a wedding blog too. An, erm, marriage blog, maybe?

Oh well, enough of the technicalities, just head over to Our Journey Continues. You'll see what I mean :)

July 04, 2008

The Past Month In A Glance

Giving updates on my life here in Melbourne hasn't been the easiest thing to do. First of all, nothing has been going on. I can't tell you how stressed out I am at work, because I'm not working yet. I can't tell you of the places I've been to, because I haven't traveled anywhere. Thus whenever I'm asked of how I was doing, I'd say "oh pretty much the same". Which pretty much meant nothing.

Still, I'm going to give it a go here, a rundown of what I've been doing for the past month.

Daily Going-Ons
I wake up early in the morning, and the second thing I turn on is my laptop (first being the electric kettle). My laptop has been a real lifesaver, connecting me to the world which I left behind. I cook dinner almost everyday. Once a week, we'd do a takeaway, which is usually Nandos, because for some odd reason, Tim is addicted to the peri-peri chicken. Me, not so much.

At least once a week, I'd head to the city. It doesn't matter where I go, as long as I get out of the house. I love walking in the city; the hustle and bustle of working people rushing out to lunch, shopping and all under an hour, the students packing the trains, etc. And the odd smelly folks whom I get to sit next to on the train.

Geekchic keeps me sane during the day, with our daily emails, chatting about nothing and everything. Downloaded movies, series of drama and sitcom to sift through while I'm on my computer. That sort of thing.

Birthday
Celebrated my second birthday here in Australia. It was a quiet affair, just with Tim. Dinner cooked by the husband, chocolate cake for dessert, and a song which he wrote me.

Chocolate Birthday Cake

I wouldn't trade that for anything. Turning 28 in Australia - I call it moving on to a new phase in life.

Books
I've been reading a lot more since I got here. Thank God for the public library, which is but 5 minutes away from our apartment. Somehow going to the library reminded me of my student days. Ahh those were the days indeed. Plus the library is stocked with the latest magazines (which people aren't allowed to borrow just yet), so I get my mag-junkie fix for free.

Movies
It's more expensive to watch movies in the cinema in Australia, yet somehow I watched more movies here than I did in Malaysia. Cheapskate Tuesdays, yeah! (only AUD10 on Tuesdays)

Jumper was disappointing, Indiana Jones 4 was rather anti-climatic (though Harrison Ford, he's still got it), Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian was meh, and Sex and the City: The Movie rocked. Get Smart was funny, but there's no chemistry between Steve Carrell and Anne Hathaway. That's what I thought anyway. Who wants to watch Kungfu Panda with me? Come on, it's Jack Black doing kungfu! Well, sort of :p

Family and Friends
I miss my family and friends so much, it hurts. I miss the familiarity of home, of being able to do what I wanted, without judgment. I miss hanging out with my girlfriends at work. Tim's friends are great, but it's very easy to tune out when medical talk easily seeps in.

It's amazing how small the world can be, and how blogging can really bring you places and more importantly, friends. Through my blog, I've managed to make some friends of my own here. Girl's day/night out, birthday party and such with Geekchic and some friends I got to know through her and sweets indulgence with Jules have been the highlight of my month. I've still yet to meet Ed, which I'm hoping I get to sometime soon.

Faith
Leaving my world behind to join another's in a place so foreign has taken quite a toll on me. Frustrations get the better of me many times, which makes me wonder what I'm doing here in the first place. Remembering that He is in charge, that He will take care of me, of us, putting our faith in Him, are what gets me through. Regularly attending church helped too. It's sad that I hardly go to church when I was in Malaysia. I made it a point to attend church services regularly when I'm here, and that's what I plan to do. Odd slip-ups now and then, but so far so good.

Today
Well, I'm at home, writing this. I haven't done this in a while, and it feels surprisingly good.

Tomorrow
I don't know what tomorrow will bring, for I am living every day, each at a time.