who would’ve thought…

July 23rd, 2008

…that it’s funny how on your birthday, quite a few sites post updates. But you don’t make a blog post to celebrate - or remember even - your 16th birthday.

Yesh, I hit the supposedly sweeter-than-sweet age of “sweet sixteen” on the 21st - only just a few days ago. And unlike what you see on MTV’s “My Super Sweet 16″, not everyone - rich or not rich - does stuffo like that. *chortle* =P All I got was just some birthday money from a relative and a friend of mum’s, a DVD box set of Rurouni Kenshin (where this domain got its namesake) from my parents, and a birthday card from the linen lady (mum’s friend too) who works at my boarding house back in UK. Oh, and not to mention, a beautiful sketch from my brother Jerry. I’d put it here because I want to show the whole world; however, 1) I have no scanner and 2) the macro shot function on any camera will not do it any justice.

I should give Scarlie a mention, a thank-you and a huge glomp too, because she remembered. And oh, sorry that I happened to leave *just* as you were about to drop a convo on MSN. 0_0 She so happens to be the only online-mate who knew or remembered; and although I don’t hold grudges against those who didn’t, I’m grateful to her because she did. =) Actually, the members of the Mayu-subs group also did send their wishes; but that’s another story. And if you’re curious; I’m now part of the Mayu-subs group as 1) a translator and 2) an uncredited webdesigner. Well, I was supposed to be making a WP skin for them…but I’ve yet to find a decent pic to design with. Ehe.

On a final note…who would’ve thought that this blog post seems to be void of 1) the usual exclamation marks, and 2) excessive usage of smilies? *smirks*

I hope everyone’s doing great this summer.

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oh no she didn’t…

July 12th, 2008

Y’know, I was just gonna end the post there and then. (Actually, I was also going to talk about how the new layout came about, but that’ll be for later.) However I came across Skye’s blurb on FaeDubh and it really got me there, so I’m gonna do a two-cent-chip-in. Knowing me, it’s gonna end up being a million bucks instead of two cents. =P (And fingers crossed for YM.net’s new look too!)

Woah. I was one of those caught up in the fighting - the AB war, as I personally dub it. And much to my chagrin, I remember detail all-too-well.

Okay, so maybe my then-13.5 year old brain had yet to learn to be more tactful, less naive + hot tempered, yada yada when with others - be it online or offline. But long story short, at the time, I designed something that was less than satisfactory, recieved a fair bit of critique, got a bit flared up, caused a misunderstanding which then led to a bit of a hoo-ha in the then-community (I remember names like Midori, Megori and others.) Then I calmed down; but the damage was already done - someone decided to take my fired-up blog post that was on THIS very site (no, I’m not showing you where and what, people) and gun it down so badly. The same “someone” - or “some people”, actually - didn’t stop there, and that’s where the fighting within webdesigners and everything under the sun grew.

It’s died down now that they’ve stopped; but the shadow of the damage still lingers - whether you agree or not, it’s your choice. That’s in the form of - I quote - “the lack of community. There isn’t as much support as their used to be.” I might be wrong; maybe the dying-out is just all of us who used to be close-knit in the community growing up at the same time, and finding that there’s other things out there than designing - like SATs/GCSEs/coursework, etc. But I think it’s sheer apathy they’ve got - “what’s the use of looking out for other designers if you’re just gonna get slagged off for it?” I was one of the lucky ones, though; when I was attacked during the AB war, Rachel stuck up for me - got slagged off in the process - but I still admire her staunch loyalty till today.

Continue reading oh no she didn’t…

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