Betshopboy.net

disassociated.com is the personal webspace of John Lampard in one form or another since 1997! Wow! That is the oldest blog I’ve seen around the blogosphere. John is a former web designer turned content producer and blogger based in Randwick, Sydney.

Since the word “blog” did not even exist 10 years ago(the term was coined in May 1999), I’m not sure whether it is appropriate to call disassociated.com a blog. Maybe it would be apt to call it the Grandfather of blog!

In those 10 long years, disaccoiated.com had evolved from its initial inception of attempting at chronicling web fiction, to going through a few domain names changes, and finally getting the current domain name in 2003 and its wordpress version was finally reborn in June 2007, after porting 600+ posts over its former static HTML files. Boy, this site sure got an eventful history behind it!

With such pedigree, you will not go wrong to head over there for some interesting reads. The blog layout is very clean, no clutter at all, and advertisings are non-existence on this blog. The archive goes all the way back till September 2002! Who can beat that? John blogs about a variety of topics which will appeal to a wide readership and if words are not really your thing, then there are the frequent posting of interesting photos for your enjoyment. As strange or coincidental as it can be, John published a post “Monoblog” on 16 July, on the same day I wrote and publish “What Price Comments?“, and these 2 posts touched on the same topic about Kumiko disabling comment on her blog!

In celebration of the blog’s 10th anniversary (that part came from me), John is holding a US$100 for 100 words contest where all you have to do is write at least 100 words (more if you want to) about disassociated.com on your blog to be in with a chance to win it!. At the end of the contest, which closes on 31st July 2007, John will select a winner based on the best review that caught his attention.

Regular readers of Kumiko’s Cash Quest would have noticed that she recently turned commenting off for a week to test the effect it would have on her blog. Analyzing the stats tracked during those 7 days of enforced gag order, she came to the conclusion that Cash Quests is a better site with comments turned off.

This anti-social blogging behavior got the attention of her readers and sparked discussion from Kevin of BloggingTips and John Chow, who goes so far as to say that “a blog without a comment system isn’t a blog….”

This post is not intended to make judgment about Kumiko’s actions and final decision, or trying to compare the pros and cons of having comments enabled or disabled. Those views were already carefully dissected by Kumiko herself and in the discussions that ensued.

I am a firm believer that the main idea of blogging is about communicating our thoughts and ideas to the readers. Meaningful communication should be 2-way traffic, and leaving comment on a blog post is the most direct way for readers to communicate, feedback and generate buzz of the topic posted. A blog is a platform where an interactive community can be built upon. In my opinion, disabling comment is akin to inviting someone into your lovely house, but preventing them from opening their mouth to speak! Can you imagine that?

When a new blog is created, one of the way to promote and create awareness that your blog existed in the vast blogosphere is by posting meaningful comments on other blogs. By meaningful comments, I mean those that convey your unique opinions and wisdom about the particular topic, not those on-the-fly lazy comments that goes “I agree” or “Great post!” or anything to that effect. Posting comments is the like building an online relationship with fellow bloggers.

Personally, one of the most rewarding part of blogging is receiving comments and replying them. I look forward to reading the comments on my blog posts and seeing them evolve and take a life on its own, you know you have contributed to the blogging community.

What is your take on a blog turning commenting off? Have you ever considered to take this less trodden path? If yes, what motivated you to do that? And what differences did it make? Any comments?

I was tagged by Mr P, Enkay and Andy Coats for this meme and the first thing I asked myself was “What the hell are quasi-interesting facts?” There are interesting facts and there are un-interesting facts, but what the hell are quasi-interesting facts? Can anyone enlighten me please?

Anyway, I took a few days to think through whatever interesting events that had happened in my life. Obviously not very interesting life I lead, I had to take a few days just to think about 8 seemingly interesting facts about myself, which for all I know, might not appear interesting to you!

Whatever the case, this is how it works:

• Each player must post these rules to begin the meme.
• Each players starts with eight random facts or habits about themselves.
• People who get tagged must blog about their eight things and post these rules.
• At the end of your blog, you need to choose eight people to get tagged and list their names.
• Don’t forget to leave them a comment telling them they’re tagged, and to read your blog.

8 Facts to Know About Betshopboy That You Don’t Really Need to Know but Some People Tagged Me So Here We Are…

8. I am not a career soldier but I served in the army for 2.5 years of compulsory national service. I’ve been to overseas military exercises in Australia, Taiwan, Thailand and Brunei. In Brunei training, I was air-lifted into the middle of a virgin jungle (practically middle of nowhere) and had to hike out of it, crossing rivers and going up a mountain and down valleys before returning to civilisation 3 days later. That was one hell of an adventure which money probably can’t buy.

7. The longest I’ve gone without taking a shower is 9 days! I was involved in a large scale military exercisein Taiwan and was outfield for 9 days before returning to base camp and proper sanitation facilities.

6. I live in a multi-racial society where Chinese, Malays, Indians, Arabs and Eurasians live and work side by side together. I can speak English, Mandarin, Singlish, some Chinese dialects, and a smatteringof Malays. If you still don’t know where I came from, it’s probably high time you check out my new “About Me” page. The link is at the top left corner.

5. I’ve been driving for 15 years (does that makes me sound old?) and has never been booked by traffic cops for speeding or road related offences(touchwood). I did get a few bookings for parking illegally though.

4. I’m an adrenalin junky and love all kinds of thrill rides in amusement parks. I’ve bungy jumped and replled from a helicopter hovering 100ft off the ground. If given a chance to jump out of an airplane (skydive) I’ll gladly grab it!

3. I read mostly fiction, Jeffery Archer and John Grisham are my favourite authors. I’ve read all of John Grisham’s courtroom drama and owned a few of those novels.

2. My 2 children were born under the same hospital as I was. But the old building was torn down a fewyears ago and they were born in a new facility built on the same site.

1. My biggest achievement in life is having my 2 beautiful children. I was in the delivery wardand witnessed both their live birth. It was bloody and it was messy but viewing their live birthat close proximity gave me such an adrenalin rush. It was a very touching and humble experience indeed. Without a doubt, it was the most priceless moment in my life!

Ok now, the rules stated I’m suppose to tag 8 other people to carry on this meme. Unfortunately,out of many invitations I’ve sent to fellow bloggers asking permission to tag them, most ofthem had either been tagged before or just want to pass up on this meme. Only 3 supportive bloggers accepted my invitation and they are miriguy, homemom3 and Sheena.

The above is probably a bonus interesting fact that out of millions of blogger out there, I can’t even find 8 people to tag a meme!

Recently this blog get paid a free review from Cash for Comments’ free ReviewMe promotion. How does one earn a free review, you might wonder? Well, it is very easy, simply leave 5 genuine comments on the blog and email Mr P and ask for your free review. It is a very simple but effective way to promote a blog and ensure stickiness by driving traffic and comments to the blog.

The above image is a self-explanatory flowchart of the free ReviewMe promotion.

CASH for COMMENTS was started on 18 June 2007, only 3 weeks ago, and it has already gotten on the Google first page for search term “free reviewme”. What an impressive achievement for a new blog site and this goes to show that a simple but revolutionary idea goes a long way. The frequent “Free ReviewMe Batches” posted will attest to the popularity of the promotion, besides that, you can also find other interesting articles.

There is nothing negative to critique about the content, writing style and posting frequency. If I may suggest, I would ask Mr P to consider changing the header image to something that closely resemble his blog mission in order to strengthen his already strong branding. I feel the current image of a highway does not gel well with the cash bag contained in a speech bubble. And for a blog build on comments as its main focus, it is rather strange not to see the Top Commentators plugin installed.

This is a new blog which had exploded off the starting block, I’m sure Mr P will ride the momentum he had created so far and continue his good work to grow the blog. Now if you would excuse me, I’m off to getting my 5 comments from that sneaky bastard!

If you are having writer’s block or suffering from blogging burnout, then you may want to take a break and check out the many activities happening this special weekend worldwide.

One of the high profile global event taking place on 07.07.07 is Live Earth. Live Earth, if you haven’t already heard(you must have been on Mars the past 3 months?), is a 24-hour, 7-continents concert series taking place on 07.07.07 that will bring together more than 100 music artists and 2 billion people to trigger a global movement to solve the climate crisis.

Live Earth will stage official concerts at Giants Stadium in New York; Wembley Stadium in London(1.30pm); Aussie Stadium in Sydney(11am); Copacabana Beach in Rio de Janeiro; Maropeng at the Cradle of Humankind in Johannesburg(6pm); Makuhari Messe in Tokyo(12pm); the Steps of the Oriental Pearl Tower in Shanghai(7pm); and HSH Nordbank Arena in Hamburg(2pm). All timing shown are local time and subjected to change.

There are tons of information about Live Earth, here and here. So I’ll not bore you with more here. But you may want to measure your carbon footprint by using the ECP Carbon and Lifestyle calculator and gear your lifestyle towards reducing the environmental impact.

Being “Friends of Live Earth” campaign, Singapore is hosting Earth Fest to trigger mass movements at the local level to combat the growing climate crisis. Besides being a mass Open Air Telecast Screening of “Live Earth” Concerts, Earth Fest will feature many activities to promote environmental awareness. Screening of telecast will be from 7 pm(Singapore time) Saturday 07.07.07 until 7 pm Sunday.

Climate change is a serious problem that affects all of humanity. There is strong evidence that human emissions of greenhouse gases are changing the world’s climate. The main greenhouse gas is carbon dioxide (CO2), produced when we burn fossil fuels like coal, oil and gas for energy.

The battle against global warming and climate change cannot be won by the actions of the Governments and businesses alone. Every individual human being must be aware of the dire straits and be infulenced by the urgency of the problem and we must be prepared to make sacrifices and adjustments to our lifestyles, our values and our attitude towards nature and Mother Earth.

Answer the call, make a difference, save Mother Earth, give our children a future.