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| Once upon a time, before facebook/myspace, xanga/xuqa (whatever that was), and before some other withered fads such as Asianavenue, there was Geocities and Angelfire. I had an Angelfire website beginning in middle school, and I loved it. It was my baby and I was so proud of it. Before there were MP3s and the RIAA, there were MIDIs and my site amassed a ridiculous amount of MIDIs. I have to admit, I wanted to be one of the "iTunes" for MIDIs: the go-to place for all MIDI files.
I had it listed in the Yahoo! Directories (back then, you had to send a request to the Yahoo staff to have your website listed in their directory), and it racheted 29,000+ visitors on the counter, light years ahead of my middle school buddies who could barely crack 500. It was a topic of discussion during lunch over french fries and twinkies, during geography class, and PE. I have to say, my brightest days in K-12 came during middle school.
I learned that at the Internet Archive (http://www.archive.org/web/web.php), there is a search engine that lets you take a peak at the internet the way it was during the golden years of the late 1990s. Some interesting flashes of nostalgia: type in Yahoo, click on a 1998 link, and the distinctive, clean modern-day Google-ish home page appears. Delighted, I typed in the most beautiful link ever conceived by a middle school kid: http://www.angelfire.com/md/backinyourtown. backinyourtown you ask? I don't know.
a sample blurb from my once great but now forgotten website:
Look at that...29,000+ visitors, and even a guestbook! Not to mention, a lot of embarrassing content:
I can't help but laugh at what I used to be. High school was a big change since I moved from a school that had no Asians into a school that had a distinctive and very "proud" Asian base. I say "proud" because I had never met so many Asians who just wanted to hang out with and only with other Asians as if the other 85% of the school population were there taking up space. Where's the integration? Anyway, to fit in my new and strange home, I followed their style, which, back in the prior century, was parting your hair in the middle, looking "depressed," advocating "azn pride" (remember that "got rice?" song?), wearing Armani Exchange, spiking your hair in weird places, listening to Korean singers/rappers, speaking Korean, cussing in Korean, and WrITinG LyKE THiS. Way too ridiculous now that I think about it. I wonder: what fads are Asian high school kids doing now?
I browsed through my old pages, and startled, I realized I had a page devoted to my friends. I had written a description of each in the most incoherent writing possible. It is both funny yet rather embarrassing since I apparently put down which girls were pretty and which weren't. Amazing how just a few years contributes so much to maturity.
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| I logged back into xanga since I had the itch to update everyone on the most pointless things in my life, but I am turned away again.
I guess I am a stranger to overseas popularity. I haphazardly checked out my "footprints," the little visitor stamps that xanga keeps track of, and after scrolling down I realize my fanbase has grown from the eastern coast of the United States, namely Maryland, to across the pond. I found out someone in Belgium subscribes to me via RSS. Yes, RSS. This is an upgrade from the standard, traditional xanga subscriptions.
I guess I am flattered, my cheeks are blushing because Mr./Ms. Belgium, if you are reading this, I've never been RSS-ed before. It feels kind of like a first kiss: I feel all giddy inside. Don't get me wrong, this really made my day.
On the flipside, and now this worries me, I realize some punk has been googling my handle "zhukeeper" a few times in my homebase of New York City (I used iplocator.com). Unfortunately, I can now never run for office because of this blog, which is so conveniently stored in google's limitless cache. You know, this has me thinking. What if someone, in an attempt to blackmail, adopted my handle on everything i.e. porn sites, political cult groups, etc.? Is there any way to stop this? Anyway, I suppose all the Thanksgiving food has gotten me paranoid.
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| update: from past 4 weeks
1. About a week ago, Colgate issued a warning saying that there are counterfeit Colgate toothpastes in discount stores in New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Maryland. Apparently, the toothpaste is "Made in South Africa" and does not contain fluoride; instead, it contains some chemical called "Diethylene Glycol." Whatever it is, it probably isn't good for you. Anyway, it so happened that about a couple months ago, I did a mini shopping spree at my local 99 cent store. I bought a ridiculous amount of plastic cups, plastic bowls, sponges, and other cheap (but essential) products. Then, I remembered I was low on toothpaste. Well, conveniently located near the counter was a stack of Colgate toothpaste. I took one and ended up opening the tube later that night.
I vividly recall how disgusting the toothpaste was. The green crap basically melted in my mouth and gave me this very fake "diet-coke" like taste to my mouth. I didn't really think much about it...I guess I just thought that maybe I'll try Crest next time.
I awoke the next morning with probably the worst case of morning bad breath ever. You know it's bad when you cup your hand over your mouth and breathe into it. Then, you smell your hand, and if it smells like crap then you have bad breath. Well, I didn't even need to breathe on my hand to figure out that my nose couldn't take it. Not only this, my teeth hurt. It felt like I hadn't brushed the past week.
Anyway, I suppose it's interesting to see that I ended up purchasing counterfeit Colgate toothpaste. Lesson: never buy toothpaste at 99 cent store.
2. Yesterday, I participated in this year's JP Morgan Corp. Challenge, a 3.5 mile race within Central Park. There were over 15,000 people running around in Central Park from across 400 or so companies. Because of my tardiness, I ended up with all the walkers in the very back. The race (for me) ended up being a race to avoid running into people and to see how many walkers I could blow through. By the time I hit the finish line, I was still avoiding people. Not that it matters, I was there to run with some friends and to have a good time. Anyway, I realized that all the running and hard work at the gym paid off: managed to cross the finish line at a great pace and without walking. Means a lot from a dude who used to barely run one mile without feeling like a lung would burst.
OK, cutting this off due to length... | | |
| update: a few things i've learned in the past couple of weeks...
1. Ice cream made with Splenda is by far one of the worst concoctions ever. I thought it was a good deal, "buy one get one free" until my spoon dipped into the seemingly delicious ice cream and entered my already salivating mouth. That was the end of it. Now I am not sure what I am going to do with two cartons of Splenda ice cream.
2. For the first time, I met a homeless man on the train who actually was in need of food and not money. I was sitting there reading a book, sipping on some Jamba Juice smoothie when I heard an old man come up to me and in desperation wanted my Jamba Juice smoothie. He wore a torn, grey shirt with oversized shoes and knee high socks. He had medium grey hair that looked so greasy that he must've gone unshowered for a long time. I gave my 2/3rds remaining smoothie to him, and he gobbled it down in two minutes. Afterwards, I asked him if he liked it, and he said that it was the best meal he's had for a week. I was really really happy to hear that.
3. I've realized that I really like running. I ran nearly the whole circumference of central park the past two weekends. I don't know why...I just felt like it. I must have the forrest gump gene that tells me to just run for no particular reason. By running, I realized where the really nice places in central park are located. There's this smallish lake near the bottom of central park that is lined with benches and a nice lakeside path. The background is lined with trees with skyscrapers looming high above in the distance. This would be a perfect place to take a nice, sunny nap. Next up: run across the brooklyn bridge. must prepare for the corporate challenge run!
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| While I was going through and "archiving" old entries, I stumbled upon one of my favorite posts of all time. This was back in college when I was a junior and I shared a bathroom with a freshman boy. I won't forget those days. After some ridiculously boring lecture, I would want to come back to the dorm and lie on my bed, but noooo, my suitemate had to fry spam or whatever monstrosity in the kitchen. The smell was so bad that it would seep into my room and I would be engulfed by spam...I wouldn't be surprised if I even dreamed about spam.
Now that I think about it, I really should have told him a lot about how frustrated I felt at times. I guess I was too passive back then.
But I remember having posted a couple pictures showing how dirty our suite had become. It was so dirty that sticky residue was everywhere and it smelled really really bad. The Aunt Jemima brand syrup would be randomly placed in the middle of the coffee table surrounded by...maybe another bottle of syrup?
Times have changed a bit. Now I have a couple new roommates. The former 40 year old roommate moved out to get married (very good for him, I think they will have a great time together), and was replaced by 40 year old roommate #2. My 2nd roommate, thank goodness, comes from Maryland. We'll keep it at that.
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Mother's day is approaching. I really want to get my mom something good, but I really suck with buying women presents. Normally I treat my mom (and dad) to dinner, but I think that is too high school / college-ish. I'm going to have to step up to the plate and really deliver this year. Maybe flowers? but everyone gives flowers. Necklaces? I hate necklaces. Any ideas? It's probably not a good thing that most of you are guys.
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