k r i s a n d r o

I don’t know if anyone shares the same views as me on this one, but I generally find that male bloggers have it tough compared to female bloggers. Since there is such a wide range of blogging styles, let me tie the success of a blogger by his/her traffic. Of course there are other factors that can determine the success of a particular blogger but let’s face it…

NO TRAFFIC NO TALK!

If someone on the street asks you, “Name me 3 top bloggers in Singapore.” How many of you people will actually name 3 guys or even 2? I think there will be some of you who won’t even name one.

[Image from here]

Why is it so? Are women better bloggers than men? What defines ‘better’?

What brings in the traffic? Someone who writes insightful posts in perfect English or a looker who post pictures and cannot write for nuts?

Go look at the blogs that you guys bookmarked or subscribed and tell me if it isn’t female dominated. If you have nuffnang polls, look at it and tell me if it isn’t female dominated readers.

First, let’s define success of a blog again. It’s largely based on popularity and popularity = traffic. And high traffic does NOT MEAN that a blogger writes well. In fact, I feel that there is a misconception in some people that blogging = writing. So to these people, they feel sick to their toes when they see female blogs full of camwhore-d pictures and little writing and these bloggers have enormous amounts of traffic. Many of these bloggers who enjoy relatively high traffic are often ridiculed by people but the amazing thing is…

Most people who dislike popular female blogs still visit them.

Do people who dislike popular male blogs still visit? Yes! But not as much as the former.

Let me just quote an example. I visit Dawn Yang’s blog often even though I think little of her writing. If you ask me to list a blog post that she wrote about, I really cannot remember anything she wrote. I only visit her blog to look at her pictures. My eyes automatically disregards all the text in her entries. I know many who dislikes her but still visits her.

Why oh why? It’s because the measure of a ‘popular’ blog is not by one’s writing.

It’s measured by how ‘interesting’ it is. And it doesn’t matter if you are an life, insightful, entertainment, food, pRon, LINKster(bloggers who scours the internet for links) or camwhore blogger. Whatever genre you are in, if you are interesting, traffic will come.

Now, let me paint you guys a situation. Let’s compare two imaginary bloggers.

1. Blogger A – Male, plain looking, writes about his mundane life.
2. Blogger B – Female, plain looking, writes about her mundane life.

If you had to choose between the two, who would you visit more often? I can name another 10 examples and most people will choose to read the female blog.

In reality, regardless of gender, people in general just like to visit female blogs more. It’s just the way it is. There are always exceptions but you simply can’t deny the fact that female bloggers tend to get a bigger chunk of the traffic.

Female bloggers are more interesting and hence more popular and there is nothing wrong with it!

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ACCEPT IT!

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And guys suck at camwhoring by the way.

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…Like me…

Last night, I was with KuKuNehNeh(KKNN) at Yio Chu Kang(YCK) waiting for a bus when we saw a blind old man at the front of the queue. KKNN motioned towards him and said,

“Eh Dear. That is the old man whom I helped cross the road when it was raining cats and dogs.”

“Oh! Is he nice and friendly?”

“Yup!”

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The reason why I asked if the blind man was nice is because I had times in my life when I tried to help people in need on the streets and got rejected rudely. An example was a number of years back when I saw this very old man struggling to alight from the front doors of a bus. He was trembling from the lack of strength in his legs and arms and I went ahead of him and on the road and held his arm to support. I don’t know where a weak old man with trembling limbs get his strength from but he immediately flinged my arm away and proceeded to yell at me in some dialect that I have no idea till now what it means. It was either his ego or his bad experience that didn’t want my help. I walked away.

So at YCK yesterday, I knew I might need to help this blind old man later and I made sure he is a nice guy first so that in the event that he is not, I am prepared to be floored by a blind old man. The old man got up the bus with help from an uncle and we got on as well. KKNN then proceeded to tell me that he will know exactly when to alight and true enough, immediately after the bus left the preceding bus stop, he pressed the bell.

We were alighting at the same stop and I approached him on the bus.

(All conversations are in Chinese and conveniently typed to you guys in English. Thank me all you want, but the truth is if I typed in Chinese, this post will have been ready by year 2010.)

“Uncle! You are getting down here right? Let me help you.”

“Thank you ah, young man!”

(Shiok! At this age, only an old man will call me young man. I should start making friends out of old folks.)

I supported him as he slowly made his way onto the bus stop pavement.

“Uncle ah, where you want to go? I bring you there.”

“I want to go to Blk 641. It’s around there.”

(He points at a direction and I thought he was being general and I looked at KKNN and she didn’t know where it was.)

KKNN LIVES NEARBY LOR! WAH LAU!

(I motioned for KKNN to go home first as I thought it would take some time for me to find BLK 641.)

“Uncle, let’s walk here.”

(I led him to the left.)

“No no! 641 is to the RIGHT!”

“Er… Okay…”

And true enough, Blk 641 is on the right and just behind the bus stop. WAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAA!!

Blind old man who wants to go somewhere. Young able bodied man with a girlfriend who lives in the area. Blind old man SHOWS the couple the way to get there.

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I then slowly walked him back to his lift lobby and he insisted on going up himself but not before bowing his head and thanking me.

Feels good to help him and feels even better to be appreciated despite lacking in my sense of direction.

WAHAHAHAHAHHAHAAHAH!!

A week back, I saw that bloggers like Ah Wei and Miss Loi recieved calls from omy.sg, telling them of their placement as a finalist in the S’pore Blog Awards. At the back of my mind, I was hoping that they will call me soon but…

DUNCH HAVE LEH!!!

Days passed and Monday came but still no call. So it wasn’t any surprise when I went to the site to only find that I was not a finalist in the ‘Most Entertaining Blog‘ category.

[Screenshot from omy]

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I know some will think that I am a pompous fellow and say,

“You think you blog very well meh?”

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I actually thought that I was deserving to be at least in the top 10 to garner some votes. Note ‘THOUGHT’ is in PAST TENSE. After spending some time thinking about it, I think every blog that omy has chosen should be deserving to be in the finalist. Blogs are like books or movies. Taste in them will vary from person to person and I guess the panel at omy didn’t think too much of mine.

Oh well, I shall move on…

… and conveniently remove the omy Banner from my sidebar.

WAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHHAAHHA!!

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Do vote for Sheylara and Rinaz in the category! I think they are deserving!!!

[Note: Everyone please help me fill in the Nuffnang poll on the right side so that I can understand you guys better!]

On Saturday, Claudia held a birthday party at De Coder’s Cafe with a bunch of her friends. The plan for some of us was to adjourn to PowerHouse@St James Power Station to party the night away and make Claudia drunk enough to strip and dance on the podium. Me and KuKuNehNeh had to leave earlier from the cafe as she needed to renew her membership card.

Molemole and her friend came along with the two of us and we cabbed to St James. We got into PowerHouse and I watched the seats as the 3 of them went for a toilet break. Like any time when I am alone like that, I will usually reach for my Nokia N95 phone and use the internet for I am an ADDICT and I am PROUD OF IT!

=P

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I reached for my right jeans pocket and it wasn’t there. I checked my right and it wasn’t there. I felt a gripping sense of fear as I checked my bag to find no trace of it. I frantically checked the plastic bag that held Claudia’s birthday card and IT WASN’T THERE AS WELL!!! I frantically went through all the possible places that my phone could be and if it wasn’t a public place, I would have stripped.

I MUST HAVE DROPPED IT IN THE CAB!!!

Time seems to slow to a crawl as I waited for the 3 of them to come back as I needed one of their phones to call my phone in hope that someone would pick it up. They soon came back and I gibberish-ed the situation to them as I stormed out into the quieter smoking area to make a call. In my head I was already thinking,

“It’s a bloody NOKIA N95 8GB HANDPHONE! It will take a miracle for someone to resist the temptation of just turning my handphone off and pulling out my sim card.”

As I reached the corner of the smoking area and dialled my number, I was already prepared to hear a busy tone which will probably end up with me cursing the fella’s dick to shrivel up and drop and if it’s a woman, to have her vagina close up and develop moss.

A connecting tone was what I heard and I immediately light up as the call connected.

A man’s voice: “Hello?”

I almost screamed with hope: “HELLO!! I AM THE OWNER OF THIS PHONE!”

“Hello! Yah. I picked up your phone in the cab.”

“Thanks for picking up my call!”

In short, there was a woman and a man in the cab who was heading to their home in Bukit Merah. There offered to keep the phone for me and have me collect it from them when able but I suggested for them to pass the phone to the cab driver to have him drive it back to St James with his meter on so that I could pay him.

I AM BLOODY LUCKY I TELL YOU!

But soon, an idiot will appear. I ended the call and wanted to turn back to the tables to tell them of the good news when a St James floor manager approached me.

Idiot: “You need to walk out of the smoking area and come in via the re-entry queue.”

Me: “Huh?”

“You need to go out and come in from the re-entry queue.”

“But WHY? I am IN the smoking area and I have not stepped out. Why should I do that?”

(and he starts to replay like a broken record)

“You need to go out and come in from the re-entry queue.”

(I got pretty pissed as this point and I raised my voice)

“LOOK! I said I DID NOT EXIT THE AREA. I was standing here and MAKING A CALL. WHY should I walk OUT and RE-QUEUE?”

(He seem to be hearing me for the 1st time and mumbled sometime before he quickly walked away)

“….cause you stepped across the line….”

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SERIOUSLY. WTF???

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Anyway, despite idiots like this who have WEIRD grasp of the rules in St James, I am happy enough to be thankful to the nice and kind couple who wasn’t greedy and the cab driver, Mr Quek, who drove my handphone back and accepted an $8 payment despite the $12 meter. (His cab doesn’t accept visa and I didn’t have enough cash)

I am seriously CARELESS and BLOODY LUCKY!