Who'd Have Thunk It?!

Exactly.

After forty-eight years, I've decided to crawl out of the rock that I've been living in for the past several months and have decided to brave the world again. The blogging world that is. I have been swamped with work, work, work and work. Have I mentioned work yet? Daym! I thought I wasn't going to survive.

But ta-da!!! Here, I am.

I never thought I'd have the time again to visit the blogging jungle. First, I got moved to another line of business at work--if there was anyone busier than a bee, that was me. And then, I changed departments entirely. My first month there was a month of OTs--but weirdly enjoyable. Yeah, I won't trade this job for anything else--I never predicted that I'll be enjoying it this much. I'm prolly becoming crazy so don't mind me.

LOL! Sad to say, you can't. Because you're reading my blog! I just don't care if I'm doing it right. I know it feels damn good to be doing it again. Home sweet home. I just a have a feeling of being lost since I know that that there have a been a number of new things in Blogger that I've missed in the past several months. Poor me has a lot of catching up to do if I'm serious about doing this thing again. I don't even know if I know how to edit my blog layout anymore.

Honestly, I'm just testing the waters. Again. I know I don't have the time that I used to have--isn't it obvious from the six-month hiatus? But I missed blogging very much. If I have to do it once a month, so be it. But I just want to have a place to go to when I feel like ranting. Or shouting to the world that I'm uber happy. Or share with the my blogreaders (are there any left?) my fetish for drool-worthy hunks. What better way to vent my writing frustrations than those?

And what about my book blog? That had been left to gather dust in the past half year as well. I just checked and the layout is in a majorly bad way--will edit, will edit. Not to mention that I've been pretty bad at reading my books. I've been buying a lot but barely have the time them. They're just piling up in one corner waiting for me to spare them a little bit of what's left of my personal time. They're prolly thinking that I right now: "She doesn't have the time for us and now she wants to pick up on blogging again!"

But I will do my best to properly have "me time" again. Regardless of how short of a time that is. I should be having equal time to watch my fave shows, read my books, and type in a few words in here.

So yeah, see ya around.

My First Blogiversary!

Time flies pretty fast and the next thing I know is I've been blogging and yammering here for a full year. LOL!

I have posted just about anything about my life that I wanna share with the rest of the world--although I admit I haven't improved on being how open I am about my personal life. I'm sure that would make for some pretty good reading. But what the heck, even if I did write about my life it just would sound so far fetched that it would be hard to believe that it's my life instead of a TV soap and I don't think you'd need more drama in your life.

So here I am, one year and counting. Thanks for the peeps who keep dropping by--you helped me save lots (including my sanity) as I don't think I need a therapist. What do I need that for when I have a blog?

And Since Everyone Is Doing It...

I've had my blog rated, too. And here is the verdict:

Really now. Apparently, I mentioned the word SHIT thrice (four now!) and the word sexy one time too many. Damn!

Have your blog rated here.

Excuses And What-Nots

My only excuse for getting back to my old way of being a bad blogger is that, really, I have no excuse. NotAnExcuse # 1) The busier-than-usual workweeks I've had in the past couple of weeks; and NotAnExcuse # 2) The even busier "rest" days in between. I feel tired just thinking about what happened during the past couple of weeks. I must admit though that it was a different kind of tired. Physically tired, yes. But the mental muscles had had great exercise so I really couldn't complain.


Weddings Everywhere

Am I the only one not getting married these days?

Holly girl is. Lucky her. NO! Lucky MM.

A friend of mine from high school also got married last Saturday--which I felt bad for not being able to attend because I found out at the last minute and couldn't get leave from work anymore.

And then I have an officemate who's getting married in October--and I've volunteered my services in helping with the wedding invites. Up until I saw the finished products, I didn't know I had all that creativity in me. I guess it's enough to say that I was danged proud of my self. LOL!


Eff Me If Wrong

My friends at work used to have a crush in our office we have nicknamed Eff (but not this politely) MeIfI'mWrong. But then he was transferred to another site--but that was after we found out that he was a total jerk. So right now we are back to being surrounded by gloriously open gay guys in the office. I'm not saying that they aren't fun to be with--the complete opposite, in fact--but really, wouldn't it be MORE FUN to actually look forward to seeing your own Mr EffMeIfI'mWrong when one has to go to work?


Trebler's 8th Anniversary

Funny how time goes by so quickly. This weekend marks the 8th anniversary of when Manchester United won the unique Treble in 1999. I can still remember it clearly like it was yesterday. But, oh boy, that was one heck of a wonderful football season. It was great watching the young boys of Old Trafford come of age and win trophy after trophy--and achieve what has gotta be the penultimate prize in club football.

*******

Speaking Manchester United memories, I can't help but think about my old pal Tim, who also happened to be a huge fan of the club. It's things like these that remind me of him and how I try not to think that every May he was supposed to turn a year older--although he would always remain 25.

Miss you very much, Timmy. Everyday.

Edit, Edit, Edit

I have been using this blog template for over five months now (sheesh!) and I still love it. I would hate to change it but I just might for variety reasons. But, crap, looking for the right template is a tedious job--it took me weeks to find and settle on this one. But I have a feeling people might be getting (quite?) bored with this look (but as I've said, not me!). So I'm gonna start hunting for one now. Even if I'm gonna be dead on my feet when I do.

But for now, I'm adding a little something in the sidebar. I'm featuring Pinoy music videos, courtesy of YouTube (where else?). I know it's as corny as they come but I rarely like anything in the Filipino entertainment industry. This is a testament that I actually do. And when I do, I tend to go terminally gaga about it. So, yeah. Check it out.

The Return Of The Bad Blogger

I hope.

I know sometimes I just suddenly stop blogging and it would seem like I have dropped off the face of the Earth. Most of the time I do feel that way because I feel lost if I won't be able to blog every few days or so. Or read other blogs for that matter.

These last couple of weeks had been very busy for me. I haven't had the energy to put a couple of sentences together to call it a "serious" blog post. But I tried. See previous post for example. Thank God it was a Dreamboat Express feature and all I needed to do was post some pics. But as you can see (or read) from the intro text, it was obviously a bad blogging day (or week!).

But from this day on, I promise to be a better blogger and refuse to allow my work to stress me out of my mind. That way I can spare some time to actually put in worthwhile blog stuff.

At least, I will do my best to do so.

Unveiling The New Looks

Finally.

I was finally able to revamp the layouts for my other two blogs. Now I don't have to think about it for another few months. Sloth that I am. But I was glad to find these templates. It wasn't easy but it sure was a lot easier than if I did them myself from scratch. Hmm, I certainly need to study Mailyn's tutorials. That way I can come up with something green-ish whenever I feel like changing templates. But till then, all I can do is search the 'Net about the free ready-to-use ones.

Bookabulary looks like this now (yay! a fairy) ...


...while Songgeist looks like this (gotta love the man with the guitar.)

Checklist For The Week

Whew! What a week it has been. Busy? Hmm, maybe I was. Aight, I was busy checking out where to find free Blogger layouts for this blog. So, yeah, it was a busy week. LOL!

Mission 1: Change blog layout.
Status: Done. I didn't know that looking for the right blog layout can actually cause migraines. Well, maybe it was just me since I made a career out of it. But you really can't blame me since I have been meaning to change this blog's layout for a long time so I just wanna do it right. And it's hard to find the right layout for someone as picky as me--I need a green and/or blue one. Oh, not just one but I needed to have a few so that I can have choices! But everything's good now since I have found a few that'll last me a year--if I use each of them for a few months.

Mission 2: Switch to Beta Blogger.
Status: Done. Well, I just gotta do it. I trusted Blogger to have straightened out all the kinks for the Beta format and not mess up with my existing blogs. I mean, the switch invitation had become more conspicuous on the dashboard than from before so I guess they're pretty confident that everything's well now. And I love the labeling feature so I'm glad that I did it.

Mission 3: Find an apartment.
Status: Done. My sister and I have finally found one...or two or three. But we still have next week to make a final decision on which one to choose. I'm confused as ever and I hope we make the right choice by the first of December.

Mission 4: Change 100 Random Things #35.
Status: Done. LOL! In the chaos of doing missions one to three, I actually managed to find time to do this. And did I say what a week it has been yet? It definitely was. I just felt the need to actually say this because I don't want anyone reading the old post and think I was lying.

Mission 5: Review at least 2 books.
Status: Pending. If I can't do it today, I promise to do it first thing next week. I'm in a review slump but believe me, I haven't stopped reading books.

Blogging and Me p.2

1. What makes you visit a blog? It could either be that the blog was a blog search result or I found the blog on someone else's blogroll.

2. What makes you come back to it? Most of the time it's common interests that keep me coming back for more. If we watch the same shows, dig the same movies, listen to the same music, read the same books, like the same sport, etc. then it's guaranteed that I'm gonna go back. The rest of the time, it's the tone or style of writing that keeps me interested. We might not have a lot of common grounds to cover, but if the blogger's writing style is something I could connect with then it's sometimes enough to keep me interested.

3. Do you read the archives of a new blog you find? Or of ones you visit frequently? Maybe if I have a lot of time in my hands I will. Because I really want to in some cases whenever I get uber-excited about the blog.

4. Do you comment on all blogs you read? Or only some? What makes you comment or not? I don't post a comment just because I have read a certain article. I post comments on articles I can relate to and when I'm pretty confident that I'm right in saying something in the first place.

5. Do you like it when someone responds to your comment with one of their own, or do you not care? It's always nice when someone replies to my comments but if they don't, it would be fine. It's not the end of the world.

6. How often does a blog need to update for you to keep visiting? A few days? Once a week? Once every couple of weeks? I am the wrong person to ask that question because I myself only update my blog whenever I can. So I think I'm really not in the position to say how often it has to be updated for it to be interesting. As long as it's updated regularly and great articles keep on popping every time, that'll absolutely be fine with me.

New Bites

The Kookie monster bites the blogging bullet again. Two more times. Whew! I didn't find anyone to customize any templates for me for these two babies but I found a couple that I liked so...

Admittedly, I am a crap book reviewer. But I want to try my hand at book blogging since I think it's the natural progression after reading. So I hope you have time to check out my Bookabulary.

Hahaha! This one's an experiment, really. I have always liked music and I used to post a monthly song choice in my old blog. I missed doing that so I thought of doing it again. Only this time, it won't be a monthly thing. Check out the disclaimer in the sidebar though when you visit SongGeist.
Hope to see you there, peeps. And hope you have a wonderful weekend. I know I will--got a date with Becks (David Beckham: A Footballer's Story on Star World). Cheerio!

Blogging and Me

I have been tagged by Dylan to tell you:

1. When did [I] first start blogging and why? I started blogging middle of last year when there's was just nothing better to do at a certain point of time. And out of the blue, it just became something I couldn't do without. Unlike keeping a written journal--which I have done since forever--it's more fun because I could get to read other people's blogs as well. It was keeping a journary and at the same time interacting with people from all over the world.
   
2. What don't [I] talk about? Things that I myself try not to think about but usually, I just talk about anything I feel like sharing with others. But politics and religion are things I don't wanna make a comment on--no matter how much I'm dying just to.
   
3. [Am I] and [my] blogging persona the same person? Most of the time, yes--because if I let Tiffany (my inner witch-with-a-capital-B) reign supreme, this place will be full of profane rants you won't even wanna read it.
   
4. How do [I] use blogging to build friendships? I don't. It's the connection I find with other bloggers that build my friendships with them. I think. But it's always fun to know that there are actually other people in the world who like the same things you like.
   
5. How would [I] describe your writing style? Free, fun, and me. Although I warn you that there will be times when it could nasty in here--that's when Tiffany rears her ugly head.

I'm tagging Ai-ai, Yowee, Rex, and Talia.

New Home Sweet Home

Okay, enough copy-pasting from my old blog. Too bad though that Weblog still doesn't have the Import feature yet.
But that's alright since I don't mind not being able to bring forward every post from the old place. You could always redirect yourself and go there.

So, as I blog away, any reader comments, rants, suggestions, violent reactions or what-have-yous are welcome.