Textual Thoughts

I would like to share a joke which was forwarded to me via email.

Ever wondered how a man can go about catching a girl’s eye? Read on if you wish to know more:

A man is dinning in a fancy restaurant and there’s a gorgeous woman sitting at the next table.

He’s been checking her out since he sat down, but lacks the nerve to talk to her. Suddenly she sneezes, and her glass eye comes flying out of its socket towards the man.

He reaches out , grabs it out of the air, and hands it back.
“Oh my, I’m sorry,” the woman says as she pops her eye back in place.

“Let me buy you dinner to make it up to you,” she says. They enjoy a wonderful dinner together, and afterwards they go to the theatre followed by drinks. They talk, they laugh, she shares her deepest dreams and he shares his.

After paying for everything, she asks him if he would like to come to her place for a nightcap and stay for breakfast.

They have a wonderful time and the next morning, she cooks a gourmet meal with all the trimmings.

The guy is amazed. Everything had been SO incredible.

“You know, he said, “you are the perfect woman. Are you this nice to every guy you meet?”

“No,” she replies. “Just the ones that catch my eye.“

I came across this piece of gem and I would like to share this simple recipe for a happiness in the coming year:

Take twelve whole months,
Clean them thoroughly of all bitterness, hate, and jealousy,
Make them just as fresh and clean as possible.
Now cut each month into twenty-eight, thirty, or
thirty-one different parts,
but don’t make up the whole batch at once.
Prepare it one day at a time out of these ingredients.
Mix well into each day one part of faith,
one part of patience, one part of courage,
and one part of work.
Add to each day one part of hope,
faithfulness, generosity, and kindness.
Blend with one part prayer,
one part meditation, and one good deed.
Season the whole with a dash of good spirits,
a sprinkle of fun, a pinch of play,
and a cupful of good humor.
Pour all of this into a vessel of love.
Cook thoroughly over radiant joy,
garnish with a smile,
and serve with quietness, unselfishness,
and cheerfulness.
You’re bound to have a happy new year.

Have a great New Year everyone and God bless.

It is that time of the year to send out Christmas greetings to friends and relatives. So in addition to the customary greeting cards and text messages, here’s one more way to get the message out:

Wish all of you a blessed Christmas and may the Lord shower each and everyone of you with blessings on this day and all year round.

Nakaya is a fairly new Japanese fountain pen company, having been set up in 2001 by Toshiya Nakata, the grandson of the founder of Platinum pen company, one of Japan’s top fountain pen manufacturers. Nakaya has differentiated itself by specialising in customised fountain pens handmade by experienced craftsmen who formerly worked for the Platinum Pen company.

It used to be that the only way to get hold of a Nakaya pen was to order it from the website or to walk into their showroom in Tokyo. In recent years they have started appointing overseas distributors who would stock these pens locally. My favourite pen specialist shop Pengallery started distributing Nakaya earlier this year. It is one thing to admire these pens on Nakaya’s website but once you get to test one of these with your own hands at the friendly neighbourhood pen shop I can guarantee that you will be reaching for your wallet in no time. That pretty much sums up my first encounter with this particular Nakaya pen.

Now that I have had the pen for a few months I guess it is a good time to share my experience with a brief review of this wonderful piece of writing instrument.

Like all Nakaya fountain pens, this pen is handcrafted and is finished with a variation of the Urushi technique whereby Urushi powder is sown onto the surface of the pen to simulate grainy stone surface. I had it fitted with one of Nakaya’s special flexible nib.

First thing that you will notice about this pen is its weight. Being made from ebonite, the pen is very light and one will be able to write with it for a long time without experiencing fatigue. The stock is based on the standard cigar model (portable size), without a clip.

The unique feature of this pen is the Ishime technique used which produces a special rough surface texture on an otherwise Urushi lacquer finish. The process is described on Nakaya’s website as follows:

“The craftsman sows Urushi powder onto the body, which makes a lot of grains on the surface due to surface tensity. After settled, he varnishes the body with lacquer several times to make the body harden. He sharpens these grains with charcoal and finished with wipe lacquer.
It is truly artistic craftsmanship to decorate stone-like appearance on a pen true to its name
(’Ishi” means a stone in Japanese).”

The Ishime finish is not one of Nakaya’s standard products. A special order has to be placed for this pen and lead time is normally quoted as 45 ~ 60 days. As I bought mine from Pengallery, who had pre-ordered it in anticipation of demand, I did not have to endure the long wait. Aesthetically the Ishime technique bestows an elegant and unique look to the pen and the textured surface is pleasant to the touch and enhances the grip on the pen.

I understand that one can custom order the Ishime finish with the other pen models such as the Piccolo or the Writer model. With hindsight I would have ordered this pen with a clip, ie a portable Writer model instead of a portable Cigar. Without the clip I tend to hesitate bringing this pen around for fear that it may just slip out of my pocket. Now I use it mainly as a desk pen.

While I ordered the pen for its aesthetic features, it is the flexible nib fitted on it which I find really endearing. The nib has been crafted with special cut outs on the sides which allows it to flex according to the pressure applied by the user.

It flexes gracefully as strength is applied incrementally and the resulting line variation is very noticeable and pleasing to the eye. I find that it really lends character to one’s writing. See the sample scribbling below:

As can be seen, the ink flows nicely without any skip. The sample above was written with ink from the Platinum cartridge which came with the pen. I have yet to use the Platinum converter with this pen.

Prior to this pen I really did not have any experience with other flexible nibs but I did come across quite a few lamentations from the more experienced users about the lack of flexible nibs in modern pens. I did not realise what I had been missing until now.

In fact I was so happy with the nib that I placed an order (through Pengallery again) for a Piccolo writer model (with reddish red tamenuri finish), equipped with Nakaya’s special flexible nib (two toned instead of monotone). This time I filled up the questionnaire which is required for Nakaya’s craftsmen to fine tune the pen and nib to my personal style of writing. I intend to post a review of the Piccolo writer as soon as I can find the spare time to take the photos and write about the experience.

The pen comes packaged in a simple but elegant wooden box, decorated with Japanese characters which translates roughly as “custom made ten thousand year pen (fountain pen)”. Nakaya has also supplied a nice cloth pouch in which to wrap the pen. Nakaya’s strong link with Platinum is emphasized by the packaging of Platinum converter and ink cartridges with all their pens.

To sum it all up: This is a great pen which I would not hesitate to recommend to any pen enthusiast.

I recently downloaded Windows Live Writer, which is still currently in beta. I was curious to know how Microsoft’s free desktop blogging application compares to w.bloggar, the popular free weblog client by Marcelo Cabral, which I have been using.

I had previously added xmlrpc extension for Textpattern, but as expected Live Writer did not come with built in support for Textpattern. However I was able to set it up to work fairly easily, thanks to this helpful post on kember.net. You will need to specify the movabletype api for it to work.

Live Writer works very much like w.bloggar in its function as a desktop blogging application but it does offer some additional features.

• It offers native support for Windows Live Spaces.
• It has a nifty web preview feature which allows the user to view how the post looks like using the actual blog style template, without actually having to publish the post. It is similar to the live preview feature which Wordpress has but which is sorely lacking in Textpattern.
• In web layout mode the draft post is formatted using the blog style template and live editing is possible.   

While the above features are nice to have, they are not compelling reasons to switch over to Windows Live Writer. I will have to test Live Writer for a longer period before making any decisions to adopt is as my default weblog client. Having said that I would recommend any blogger who is looking for a weblog client to at least try out this interesting application from Microsoft. To help you decide there’s a very good review of Windows Live Writer here.

The video clip is hosted by Google Video and can be accessed via the Acrobat Flash applet embedded below:

Just click on the “play” button to run the clip. It is only a short video (one minute length), showing Daniel throwing his tantrum.

After a five hour ordeal in the labour room, baby Daniel was brought in to this world kicking and screaming on 11th November 2006. He weighed a healthy 3.6kg and measured almost 50cm from head to toe.

As proud parents Sheau Pei and I are proud to share some early photos of our newest family member.

Sheau Pei, Daniel and I

A close up of Daniel

Daniel seems to be smiling in this photo

More photos have been posted here:

In my previous post I mentioned that Avery Hise, the founder of Rambling Snail had put up a for sale notice for the forum.

Not long after that the site ramblingsnail.net ceased to be found on the world wide web. I was reluctant to post about the new development since I did not want to speculate prematurely on the demise of the Rambling Snail.

However it has now been about a month since I noticed the site’s disappearance, and I guess we have to finally acknowledge the fact that the Rambling Snail forum has ceased to exist.

I guess Avery should still be keeping a backup of the database forum and with some effort one should still be able to revive the venerable Rambling Snail. We can only hope that some kind soul will step up to the challenge.

In the meantime I have moved on and signed up with the following fountain pen communities, under the userid of “danny”:

Fountain Pen Network and Fountain Pens South East Asia.

The Fountain Pen Network has been around for a few years already and it a very active community with over 2500 registered users (at last count).

On the other hand the Fountain Pens South East Asia forum is very new, being only a few months old, but targets users from a certain geographic region, namely South East Asia. It is hoped that this board will grow to be a focal point for fountain pen collectors in the region.

Ever since I was bitten by the fountain pen bug a few months ago, I have been yearning to find a way to photograph the pens in a satisfactory manner. Fortunately Kelvin Tan, photographer extraordinaire , conducted a workshop in pen photography at Pengallery’s showroom during a private review session. I was amongst the lucky few who attended the class, and I learnt so much from him that I was determined to put the new found knowledge into practice.

So when the Gimp, a marvellous piece of free software for image editing.

The tools work very well, as can be expected from most modern photographic equipment. Together with Kelvin’s tips I was able to produce some satisfactory photos of a few of the fountain pens in my collection. Once the pain in my wallet has subsided I will probably be adding a second slave flash unit for dual light source.

Below are a few selected shots taken with the above equipment. The complete set can be accessed at my Flickr site.

Aurora 88 Sterling Silver Fountain Pen

Pelikan 1931 Yellow Gold Limited Edition Fountain Pen

I have recently sold my Canon EOS 20D DLSR in anticipation of a new digital SLR to be released by Canon. Traditionally Canon has released new products in the Fall and August is usually the month for new camera product announcements by them. As the end of August approaches, rumour mills world wide have been working overtime, speculating on possible new SLRs to be introduced by Canon.

And if Canon does introduce these new cameras it won’t be a moment too soon because the competition have recently released new entry level cameras which have raised the bar for Canon.

Sony released their Alpha 100 DLSR to rave reviews and have even managed to win the EISA Consumer Camera of the Year award. Not bad for a first effort. (A comprehensive review of the Alpha 100 can be found here.)

Hot on the heels of Sony is Nikon’s recently announced D80 DSLR. (A comprehensive review of the D80 can be found here.)

Both the Alpha 100 and the D80 have been equipped with the same 10MP CCD sensor produced by Sony, and are priced competitively. Hence Canon is widely anticipated to respond with products of similar specifications or better.

One of the more popular sites tracking rumours of Canon’s coming new product is Bob Atkins who has launched a page dedicated to Canon’s new products. The consensus so far seems to be for an evolution of the EOS 350D SLR, to be called either the EOS 370D or the EOS 400D, with a pixel count matching the Alpha 100 and the D80. However Canon is expected to maintain the advantage in picture quality due to their excellent CMOS sensor technology which produces practically noise free digital images.

Kelvin Tan has just set up a brand new message board for fountain pen aficionados in the South East Asian nations. It is aptly called Fountain Pens - South East Asia.

To all fountain pen lovers in the region, especially in Malaysia and Singapore please head on over to register and make this online community your own. Together we shall generate and nourish our interest in fountain pens.

The Street.com reported that AOL’s recent announcement of its plans to begin offering free personalized domains to internet users from September 2006, has adversely affected Godaddy.com’s IPO plans. In fact Godaddy has announced the shelving of the IPO plans.

Godaddy revolutionized the domain name regstration industry by offering low priced domain name registration via the web (According to Godaddy, their prices are up to 70% lower than the some of the competition), thus making personalized domain names affordable to millions of internet users. I count myself as one of their satisfied customers, having been with them for the past two years. Godaddy has grown exponentially with their unique strategy and is now the world’s largest domain name registrar.

Naturally when I first read the news I was apprehensive about the company’s future without the IPO.

Fortunately my fears turned out to be unfounded as I soon read on Bob Parson’s blog (Bob is the founder and CEO of Godaddy.com) his rationale for the change of plans and more importantly that Godaddy has always been cash flow positive operationally, an important point if it is to continue as an independent business.

However without the IPO, whatever expansion plans or diversification strategies that Godaddy had planned to implement with the IPO money would have to be shelved also. It remains to be seen how that will affect Godaddy’s competitive position in the long term.

Avery Hise, the founder of Rambling Snail Fountain Pen Citizenry has just posted a “For Sale” notice for this highly popular and successful online community for fountain pen enthusiasts.

I have been following the forums for the past few months but have not registered. I did so immediately upon seeing the notice for fear that the forum’s days may be numbered. I truly hope that my worries are for nothing and someone will step up to take over ownership and continue the wonderful service that Avery has so kindly rendered to the international fountain pen community.

There are many fountain pen users who hold the opinion that German made fountain pens are amongst the best in the world. And many in this group further believe that Pelikan manufactures the best German fountain pens. I count myself as one of them. What made me a Pelikan convert is a recent purchase of the Pelikan Souveran M805 which I bought at a very good price from Pengallery. (After exhaustive comparison shopping on the internet I have found that Pengallery offers one of the most competitive prices for Pelikan pens.)

The M805 is a wonderful example of excellent German craftsmanship in fine writing instruments. The first thing that you will notice about the pen is its size. It measures 14.2 cm long with cap on and measures 16 cm with the cap posted. The M805 is a big pen clearly designed to impress. Even then it is only the second largest pen in Pelikan’s Souveran range with the top honours belonging to the M1000 model. The pen is surprisingly light for its size, weighting in at only 28.5gms, hence there is less tendency for hand fatigue with lengthy writing sessions. The relatively light weight can be attributed to Pelikan’s use of high quality resin for the pen barrel, section and cap. I tend to use the pen with the cap posted and the balance is perfect for me.

The cap is of the threaded design which is definitely a plus for me because I can avoid the messy ink splatter that comes with the removing the snap on caps on certain makes of pens. Also it is said that threaded caps tend to cut down on the evaporation rate of the ink hence there is less tendency for the ink to dry out. I have not personally verified this claim but it does sound logical.

The M805 comes with a hand crafted 18K solid gold nib. The nib is dual toned and is beautifully engraved. The nib on my pen is a medium tip. It is extremely smooth with excellent ink flow. The nib always starts immediately upon touching paper and does not skip. One feature of the Pelikan system is that the nibs are designed to be user changeable. That means I can easily purchase a Broad nib or a Fine nib and swap it with the existing one for a whole new user experience.

The M805 comes with silver trims, unlike its sibling the M800 which has gold trims. I chose the M805 because the silver trims are more understated and less “showy”,  thus more suitable for my personal daily use.

One feature which I truly appreciate about the M805 is the filler system which is Pelikan’s trademark differential piston filling system. It is puzzling to find large sized fountain pens which are equipped with the cartridge/converter system which totally fails to take advantage of the barrel volume for ink storage. All the pens in the Pelikan Souveran range comes equipped with piston fillers which enhances the capacities of the ink reservoirs. For a large pen like the M805, this feature really differentiates it from the rest of the pack. I find that with the M805, despite heavy usage, I don’t have to fill it up every other day. The pen barrel is also equipped with a transparent ink window which allows me to see when the ink is running low. This is a really thoughtful feature which is no longer seen on the other pens equipped with cartridge/converter systems.

I tend to use this pen with the Pelikan 4001 fountain pen inks which come in wide variety of colours. The 4001 inks are made from a truly time tested formula and are really excellent inks. The only drawback is that like all traditional fountain pen inks, the 4001 inks are not waterproof. For that feature you will have to check out Noodler’s inks from the USA.

In conclusion to this review, I would like to say that the Pelikan Souveran M805 fountain pen is an extremely well designed pen of the best German pedigree. Despite its impressive good looks, it is truly a great piece of writing instrument which provides excellent value for money.

This hilarious story came to me via email:

An atheist was taking a walk through the woods.”What majestic trees! What powerful rivers! What beautiful animals!” he said to himself.

As he was walking alongside the river he heard a rustling in the bushes behind him.He turned to look and saw a 7 foot grizzly bear charge towards him.

He ran as fast as he could up the path. He looked over his shoulder and saw that the bear was closing in on him.He looked over his shoulder again and the bear was even closer.

He tripped and fell on the ground.He rolled over to pick himself up but saw the bear right on top of him, reaching for him with his left paw and raising his right paw to strike him.At that instant the Atheist cried out to the Lord.

Time stopped, the bear froze, the forest was silent. A bright light shone upon the man, a voice came out of the sky, “You deny my existence for all of these years, teach others I don’t exist, and even credit creation to a cosmic accident. Do you expect me to help you out of this predicament? Am I to count you as a believer?”

The atheist looked directly into the light, “It would be hypocritical of me to suddenly ask you to treat me as a Christian now, but perhaps could you make the BEAR a Christian?”

“Very well,” said the voice.The light went out.The sounds of the forest resumed. And then the bear dropped his right paw, brought both paws together and bowed his head and spoke:”Lord, bless this food, which I am about to receive through Christ our Lord, Amen.”

Received this on a rainy day via email:

Something you may want to ponder on a rainy day?

So, you Think English is Easy?

Try to read these correctly the first time?

1) The bandage was wound around the wound.

2) The farm was used to produce produce.

3) The dump was so full that it had to refuse more refuse.

4) We must polish the Polish furniture.

5) He could lead if he would get the lead out.

6) The soldier decided to desert his dessert in the desert.

7) Since there is no time like the present, he thought it was time to present the present .

A bass was painted on the head of the bass drum.

9) When shot at, the dove dove into the bushes.

10) I did not object to the object.

11) The insurance was invalid for the invalid.

12) There was a row among the oarsmen about how to row.

13) They were too close to the door to close it.

14) The buck does funny things when the does are present.

15) A seamstress and a sewer fell down into a sewer line.

16) To help with planting, the farmer taught his sow to sow.

17) The wind was too strong to wind the sail.

18) Upon seeing the tear in the painting I shed a tear.

19) I had to subject the subject to a series of tests.

20) How can I intimate this to my most intimate friend?

Let’s face it - English is a crazy language. There is no egg in eggplant, nor ham in hamburger; neither apple nor pine in pineapple. English muffins weren’t invented in England or French fries in France. Sweetmeats are candies while sweetbreads, which aren’t sweet, are meat. We take English for granted. But if we explore its paradoxes, we find that quicksand can work slowly, boxing rings are square and a guinea pig is neither from Guinea nor is it a pig.

If the plural of tooth is teeth, why isn’t the plural of booth, beeth? One goose, 2 geese. One moose, 2 meese? Doesn’t it seem crazy that you can make amends but not one amend?

If teachers taught, why didn’t preachers praught? If a vegetarian eats vegetables, what does a humanitarian eat? Sometimes I think all the English speakers should be committed to an asylum for the verbally insane. In what language do people recite at a play and play at a recital? Ship by truck and send cargo by ship? Have noses that run and feet that smell?

How can a slim chance and a fat chance be the same, while a wise man and a wise guy are opposites? You have to marvel at the unique lunacy of a language in which your house can burn up as it burns down; in which you fill in a form by filling it out; and in which, an alarm goes off by being on.

English was invented by people, not computers, and it reflects the creativity of the human race; which, of course, is not a race at all.

Thought I would share the following message which I received via email today:

There was a church that had problems with outsiders parking in its parking lots, so they put up a sign:

CHURCH CAR PARK - FOR MEMBERS ONLY
Trespassers will be baptized!”

CHURCH SIGN BOARDS:
“No God - No Peace”
“Know God - Know Peace.”

“Free Trip to heaven.”
“Details Inside!”

“Try our Sundays.”
“They’re better than Dairy Queen’s”.

“Searching for a new look?”
“Have your faith lifted here!”

“People are like tea bags” –
“you have to put them in hot water before you know how strong they
are.”

Fight truth decay - study the Bible daily.

How will you spend eternity - Smoking or Nonsmoking?

“Dusty Bibles lead to Dirty Lives”

“It is unlikely there’ll be a reduction in the wages of sin.”

“Do not wait for the hearse to take you to church.”

“If you’re headed in the wrong direction,
God allows U-turns.”

If you don’t like the way you were born, try being born again.

Looking at the way some people live, they ought to obtain eternal fire insurance soon.

This is a ch_ _ ch.
What is missing? - (U R)

In the dark? - Follow the Son.

Running low on faith? - Step in for a fill-up.

If you can’t sleep, don’t count sheep.
“Talk to the Shepherd.”

“Come work for the Lord.”
“The work is hard, the hours are long and the pay is low. But the retirement benefits are out of this world . ”

An ad for one Church has a picture of two hands holding stone tablets on which the
Ten Commandments
are inscribed and a headline that reads,
“For fast, fast, fast relief, take two tablets.”

When the restaurant next to another Church put out a big sign with red letters that said,
“Open Sundays,”
the church reciprocated with its own message: “We are open on Sundays, too . ”

AND THE WINNER IS !

- ON THE PASTOR’S PARKING SPOT -

PASTOR’S SPOT - YOU PARK, YOU PREACH!

Out of the box Textpattern does not provide the meta “description” tag for each article. Although there’s a keywords field available for each article under the “Advanced Options” link on the “write” page, the keywords tag is not included in the default template.

I wanted to implement custom meta tags such as description and keywords on an individual article basis, so I decided to do some research. It was definitely worth the while.

The information put forward by the Textpattern community was definitely sufficient enough for even a novice like me to implement.

Here’s a summary of the many informative articles and discussions which I found on the subject.

* “A tutorial by Graphic Push”:http://www.graphicpush.com/index.php?id=140
* “An item from the FAQ on custom fields”:http://textpattern.com/faq/111/how-do-i-use-custom-fields
* “meta keywords tag”:http://textpattern.net/wiki/index.php?title=Txp:meta_keywords_/
* “meta author tag”:http://textpattern.net/wiki/index.php?title=Txp:meta_author_/

Warren’s Playpen is a website which I set up a few months ago for my son. Warren loves to scribble, so I thought I would encourage him by setting up a personal website to showcase his doodles.

Recently I tried to do a search on Google using the term “Warren Tam” and I was presently surprised to see that Warren’s Playpen was at the top of the list.

I would like to think that this is a powerful testimony to the elegant design of Textpattern which generates clean search engine friendly xhtml code.