Tag Archives: Blog

Perfume Tag

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I guess it was bound to happen one day… I’m tagged by my friend Wen, a fellow blogger and expat living in beautiful Malta. I must admit I’ve tried to stay away from the tagging thing that seemed to be a hype in the blogosphere at some point. I’ve managed so far but when I read her request on her blog I simply couldn’t refuse *hehe*. I’m just very aware of the fact that this is a book tag and the one book I’m still reading at the moment is the one that I’ve mentioned in my previous posts already. So I’m gonna bend the rules slightly or else it’ll become a bit of a drag to read.

The rules are:

1. Pick up the nearest book.

2. Open to page 123

3. Find the fifth sentence.

4. Post the next three sentences.

5. Tag five people, and acknowledge who tagged you.

I also won’t tag five people… Why? Because most of my readers are in hiding mode and probably too shy to take part in this, leave a comment or they simply don’t have a blog of their own. So I’m not gonna bother them unless they want to [then feel free to let me know!]. I have a slight dilemma though because rule number one tells me to pick up the nearest book. My desk is right next to my bookcase so I guess that leaves me with plenty of books to choose from. I will behave and skip my seventeen technical Bibles: PHP, Actionscripting, Flash and all the -vintage by now- Mac OS troubleshooting ones that I used back when I was a sysop.

My choice is one of the most hilarious books that I’ve ever read years ago. I will read it again once I’ve finished my other book because I’m in need of a good laugh. I wonder what’s on page 123 because some might be offended but I’ll warn you, I’m really not gonna take responsibility for the sentences that I’m about to copy below. So stop reading while you can… here goes:

‘For miles around the mountain, there lived not one human being, nor even a respectable mammal -at best a few bats and a few beetles and adders. No one had scaled the peak for decades. Grenouille reached the mountain one August night in the year 1756.’

This an excerpt taken from the book: ‘Perfume‘ -the story of a murderer, by Patrick Süskind. And lucky me it wasn’t that bad at all *hehe*

The cover from my copy of this book, old and worn…

Well, that was today’s tag… The other bit of my life is less exciting at the moment, just much of the same ol’ same ol’. I’m dying to hear from a bunch of cool people about a role very close to where I live which involves education and a CMS called Drupal. They’ve checked my online web folio twice now so please keep your fingers crossed for me, I so want this role! I’m designing an invitation for my friend IvS. in Scotland who is going to throw a party in August: my flight is already booked. I’m really looking forward to seeing her, hubby and kids again because it feels like ages, although it was last year when they came to London for the Chelsea Flower show, it’s gonna be great. 120 people are invited to the party and they will receive the invitation so it might be a good idea to leave my mark somewhere…

I’m asked to redesign a B&B website for people up north in Scotland. I’ve designed their business cards a few years ago and another website recently in February this year. I’m also still busy working on the ‘hush-hush-project’ which is another website design for a real and a virtual shop. And in between I’m working on my own new project which involves fifties design and an online shop which for now is another ‘hush-hush-project’ until the launch of the website. It’s quite a lot of work so don’t expect anything soon, I’m still in the research phase: looking for proper software because I need to be able to adjust the look and feel of the shop, reading about online payment methods because I need to know how much they charge etc. and designing content in the meantime.

Lucky me MvdM. didn’t ask me yet about his business blog project, I will have to design the templates for the blog and start writing posts for him on a weekly basis once the blog is up and running. I won’t have time to do this at the moment. Talking about time, I really need to do something about time management, but that’s another post… If you have any suggestions?

Google Queen

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I received an email today a few hours ago which is the second offer I received in a week’s time to be an editor and/or write for blogs. The first option was sent to me through email by MvdM.: he asked me to contribute articles about ‘things to do’ in London related to art, design, photography etc. and become an editor of his professional blog aimed at the business he’s in which is related to photography. I would have plenty of time to write something or look into things. Of course I agreed to do this because it’s fun and he’s a close friend! Although I’m always surprised to hear that people like my writing and read it, I’m flattered, yes…

The second email I received started with: ‘You have a great writing. I have enjoyed the articles on your blog’ which I thought was quite funny because according to my stats this person didn’t spend much time on my blog at all. He was offering me a so called ‘journalist’ function as part of some kind of bloggers news community which seemed to be based in India. I would never just trust any email that I’ll get thru my blog from any stranger that is offering me anything in particular. People will have to earn my trust no matter whether I expose myself to the outside world through my blog or not. Just because they can read my stories doesn’t mean I have to allow them access to other aspects of my life.

And because I have antennae I’m pretty good at separating the wheat from the chaff… So something started buzzing straight away… and because I consider myself the Google Queen I did what I’m good at. I searched the World Wide Web for information and found exactly what I was looking for. A confirmation to my gut feeling. So my answer to those who contacted me today is a loud no, thank you! I don’t write to collect followers. I’m not interested in your offer and I’m not writing to make money: I don’t want the four bucks, you could donate it to charity and please don’t contact me again… you really underestimate my intelligence.

On a different note: I’ve decided to put some more positive Qi in the office… I’m not really into the Feng Shui thing, well at least not conscious that is, perhaps on a subconscious gene-wise level, but adding some extra positive energy never did anyone any harm *hehe*. So I bought some Chinese lucky bamboo [Fu Gui Zhu] and organised a glass vase and some nice tiny stones to hold the bamboo. I bought six of them, yes I am superstitious. Like I said earlier, it comes with the genes *wink* Anyway… six of these silly stems because the word six sounds like “Luck” in Chinese and will bring me prosperity and favorable conditions.

My Qi spot *hehe*

My bit of luck *wink* [yes the pic on my monitor is one I took as well]