The name change of my blog brought people with new queries like "meeting people online" or "how to meet people online". I though I'd write a bit on the topic.
Meeting people is one of the easiest things to do online, it's even some people's favorite online activity. In fact when it comes to meeting people online, the most valuable information is not the how-to but rather the what-to-avoid. To the younger readers I recommend this article about online meetings, read it before you read the rest of this post.
If you want to find a person to exchange emails with I will recommend Penpalnet.com, it's a completely free service, you are able to search people and contact them or be contacted by them for free.
They have a very large database and if you log regularly on the site your profile will appear on top of other user's searches provided they are looking for a person with your profile, and thus you will be contacted by a certain number of people. Keep in mind that it's a free service, there are a few limitations, you can only search people by age and/or sex and/or location. Typically the top results will be that of other users who've logged in the most recently -they do not say this explicitly-. The age range of members is very wide. They do not give you information on the last login time of the users, which would be convenient at least you would know who has been active lately. There are no photos on profiles (but that shouldn't be a problem...). A friend told me there is a limit to the number of messages you may send on a single day. When you write a reply to a message you don't have the possibility to view the original message unless you've copied it on a text editor or opened it in another window/tab. Be careful if you log in everyday you might want to make your profile invisible otherwise you might have a few new people contacting you weekly. Of course you might be one of those fortunate who do not mind starting (and keeping) new e-friendships on a weekly basis. I know I’m not one of those.
Penpalnet.com is completely free, it's simple and easy to use, and they have a very large number of users. With a little patience and persistence you might just find the type of person you are looking for.
If you are mostly interested in meeting people from Asia and are willing to pay a little I will recommend another service I've used for a while, it's called Teletextfriends (it's based in Singapore), or rather I would recommend the clone service Worldfriends (with the same user data base but with the added option to send smiles to people you are interested in contacting, actually it seems Teletextfriends is Worldfriend’s clone).
A large number of members do take the time to fill out their detailed profile and to add a picture, they also provide and indication of whether another member is compatible with you based on the information provided on both of your profiles regarding what each other is looking for. But, in order to send messages to people you must be a premium member. A non-premium member may contact you only if you have purchased an open membership, which is different from regular membership. A premium member is not necessarily an open club member. The advantage of open club is that it allows other members who "find" you to initiate contact. The system tells you when other members view your profile, you always know who's looking at you. If you use these services I recommend you take the necessary time to fill out your profile as completely as possible.
If you want a meeting method that's faster than the two I've mentioned so far consider using Instant Messaging (IM) programs.
Yahoo! Messenger allows the users who are over 18 to access public chat rooms. The chat rooms are grouped by theme. Once you are inside a room you may join or initiate a conversation with others inside the room or even exchange instant messages with those that I've enabled that feature -by default you are not able to receive IMs from people who are not on your contact list you have to enable the feature in your preferences- . Depending on your profile or on whether you are chatting inside the room and depending on the population of that room other users might receive [too] many IMs. Be aware of the presents of "bots" in practically all the Yahoo! chat rooms. Bots? Yes, programs that are conceived to masquerade as people, most of them have female IDs, sometimes they might even come in pairs chatting inside the room etc... They will send you IM, most of the time, it's a link DO NOT CLICK the link. Ignore the user. A real person will (should) be decent enough to say "hi" (or some equivalent) first.
You can also search for people to chat with in Yahoo!'s members directory. I recommend filling out your Yahoo! profile with at least the basic information i.e. age and sex, no need to put your home address or anything like that. You might also consider putting a picture. Keep in mind that if you are a woman, and you put a picture on your profile with your age and location then any given time your status is "online" you are likely to receive IMs from people (men) in your area -at least that's what happens to me-. Try using advance search for better results.
ICQ is also another IM program you can use, it allows you to search for online users based on their profile (age, sex, interests, location etc..). It's pretty efficient, though it's critical that you fill your profile so the other users can know you are a real person otherwise they might think you are a bot and not accept your messages.
As long as you have the possibility to write/chat with another person on the web whether is because he/she put his/her contact information on a web page or whether you are both a member of a certain web community, there is the possibility to start an e-relationship that might lead to a lasting friendship.
As for meeting your future spouse online, yes it might happen but this is not what this post was all about. Right?
Tags: meeting people online
Tuesday, December 06, 2005
Saturday, November 12, 2005
November 15th
Ankit told me he would be back on November 15th. In spite of the bad experience I had with Ankit, I still enjoy talking to him. I must say, he did apologize. The last time we talked we were in August and now, finally the date is near, next week he will be coming back online.
I wrote about Ankit before…After I realized the effect my post and comment had on him, I did two things, first of all I deleted that comment, second, I decided I would not use this blog to make anyone feel bad or to put someone down. I'll try to focus on the good things about people and when I do write about the bad ones, I'll keep it impersonal as much as possible.
Update
He did come back! Not that I ever doubted ;)
I wrote about Ankit before…After I realized the effect my post and comment had on him, I did two things, first of all I deleted that comment, second, I decided I would not use this blog to make anyone feel bad or to put someone down. I'll try to focus on the good things about people and when I do write about the bad ones, I'll keep it impersonal as much as possible.
Update
He did come back! Not that I ever doubted ;)
Friday, November 11, 2005
Meet Basam
I was chatting with Basam (Ghazal) this morning, he was at home and his cam was on. Basam is a very nice young man.
Thursday, November 10, 2005
AAAHHHHHHHH
I can't believe how awful my blog looked on Internet Explorer. What a mess! Since I use Firefox I had no clue until recently.
It all started when I got upset with the Google Adsense Ads that where showing on one of my post pages, I couldn't believe these ads. Did you know that you can't filter the Adsense ads by key word. I thought it was surprising since it would be the most efficient form of filtering. But no, to filter ads with Adsense you have to know the websites you don't want to show up and add them to your filter. Now, ok, so all I have to do is go on the page note the url and add it to my filter, not quite since the ads that show up on a page are not always the same for every single page load and then, the ads that show up are not the same for viewers around the world.
I couldn't believe these ads really! It was a rather old, simple and short post, the only reason why I went on that page was because I was checking my counter statistics and someone was sent there by a search engine.
I decided on that day to take off the Adsense ads, on post pages at least. I left the ones on my main and archive pages for now since they seemed to be ok and they do fill space on my sidebar!!!
So instead of deleting the scripts from my template, I commented them -a reflex-. I'm not good at template modifying, in the end I made an awful job, I did not even have (take) the time to test it properly (with IE). A big mistake! For some reason I was looking at my blog using IE, I started searching for my cbox only to realize it had been shifted all the way down with the rest of the side bar. I apologize to most of you coming here who use IE, sorry, next time I'll test my template with IE also...if I don't forget...
It all started when I got upset with the Google Adsense Ads that where showing on one of my post pages, I couldn't believe these ads. Did you know that you can't filter the Adsense ads by key word. I thought it was surprising since it would be the most efficient form of filtering. But no, to filter ads with Adsense you have to know the websites you don't want to show up and add them to your filter. Now, ok, so all I have to do is go on the page note the url and add it to my filter, not quite since the ads that show up on a page are not always the same for every single page load and then, the ads that show up are not the same for viewers around the world.
I couldn't believe these ads really! It was a rather old, simple and short post, the only reason why I went on that page was because I was checking my counter statistics and someone was sent there by a search engine.
I decided on that day to take off the Adsense ads, on post pages at least. I left the ones on my main and archive pages for now since they seemed to be ok and they do fill space on my sidebar!!!
So instead of deleting the scripts from my template, I commented them -a reflex-. I'm not good at template modifying, in the end I made an awful job, I did not even have (take) the time to test it properly (with IE). A big mistake! For some reason I was looking at my blog using IE, I started searching for my cbox only to realize it had been shifted all the way down with the rest of the side bar. I apologize to most of you coming here who use IE, sorry, next time I'll test my template with IE also...if I don't forget...
Tuesday, November 08, 2005
How I'm feeling these days
Depending on my mood there are certain songs that come to my mind. I used to like alternative rock, and I also used to have a Cranberries CD (Ode to my family) but someone else liked it more than I did and I no longer have it.
The Cranberries is an alternative rock irish band. Since it's alternative music, there's a lot of sadness and melancholy in most of the songs in that album. The song that's playing in my head these days is "Dreaming my Dreams". Even though Dolores O'Riordan says she wrote it on a day when she found happiness if you hear me singing(!) or just humming it, you wont need to ask me, you will hear my sadness.
Just in case you were wondering, the answer is yes, this sadness was triggered by someone I met online.
The Cranberries is an alternative rock irish band. Since it's alternative music, there's a lot of sadness and melancholy in most of the songs in that album. The song that's playing in my head these days is "Dreaming my Dreams". Even though Dolores O'Riordan says she wrote it on a day when she found happiness if you hear me singing(!) or just humming it, you wont need to ask me, you will hear my sadness.
Dreaming my dreams
All the things you said to me today
Changed my perspective in every way
These things count to mean so much to me
Into my faith you
And your baby
It's out there
If you want me
I'll be here
It's out there
I'll be dreaming my dreams
With you
And there's no other places
That I'd lay down my face
I'll be dreaming my dreams with you
It's out there
If you want me, I'll be here
I'll be dreaming my dreams with you
And there's no other places that I'd lay down my face
I'll be dreaming my dreams with you
"Dreaming my dreams was written on December 25th 1993, Where I found happiness"
by Dolores O'Riordan
Just in case you were wondering, the answer is yes, this sadness was triggered by someone I met online.
Thursday, November 03, 2005
JARHEAD
There's a movie called JARHEAD coming in theaters in the US soon. The title made me laugh, it reminded me of a conversation I had with a US soldier in Iraq. I was telling him how I think that marines are always ready to shoot and how when you are around them you should be really careful what you do otherwise they might feel threatened and start shooting. I was thinking about the last time the US troops were here and how they shot a few civilians in unclear circumstances. He told me never to call a marine a Jarhead -he was not a marine himself-.
According to the people in one of theYahoo! military chat rooms, a Jarhead is a marine but they don't like to be called jarheards, I wonder why...!!!
According to the people in one of theYahoo! military chat rooms, a Jarhead is a marine but they don't like to be called jarheards, I wonder why...!!!
Monday, October 31, 2005
Why I replaced my Neoboard with a Cbox
I tried the Neoboard for a while, and frankly, being faithful to my "spend $ 0" policy when it comes to blogging, I don't intend to upgrade to the premium version.
I enjoyed being part of the Neo community. It's amazing how you come across people who are different in most ways, and still most of them always have nice words to say to each other, truly amazing. I enjoy the international, multilanguage sides of the Neo people. And also I have to say, the way they communicate with the users and the prompt responses (in most cases), just great! They have many satisfied users.
I haven't told you about LittleNeo and his List. Being part of LittleNeo's List is a good way to get new visitors to your site and also to discover other web sites from around the world. A great feature to keep the people coming to NeoWORX and maybe the only reason why my Neoboard was still on the sidebar until recently. I discovered interesting blogs over there, most interestingly is the number of blogs that I already knew that I've seen on LittleNeo's list, actually it's not surprising since they do, for most, use the much appreciated NeoCounter.
I have had a few problems with the NeoBoard though. They tell you that during the trial period you have all the premium features but I hardly succeeded in customizing my NeoBoard. The US flag always shows even when I uncheck the "show my flag" box brrrr... irritating. But I was living with it. At some point, Meq was unable to post messages (oh you don't know Meq? check out the Little Pieces). Then, I was unable to post myself. Still this also allowed me to experience one of the good things about the Neoworx service, all I did was go to their homepage and post a message on the message board they have there to tell them about my problem, a little while later, it was working. It's amazing how they actually take the time to read and answer to the people who post messages there! I wonder how long they can keep this up. Oh yes and did I mention that they have multilanguage user support. Though it surprised me that there weren't more messages on the NeoBard at the NeoWORX homepage.
Before I knew it, my 14 day trial period was over and I saw giant ads on my Neoboard, and a message saying the Neoboard would be back in a few minutes, it bothered me quite a bit, but it was the free version after all...
Well I was thinking about having two message boards on the side bar! I don't think it's prohibited but probably it would confuse my visitors. I've discovered the Cbox, and I want to try it out for a while, it looks a bit more sober and customizations are easily made, I hope it will last longer than my NeoBoard.
I enjoyed being part of the Neo community. It's amazing how you come across people who are different in most ways, and still most of them always have nice words to say to each other, truly amazing. I enjoy the international, multilanguage sides of the Neo people. And also I have to say, the way they communicate with the users and the prompt responses (in most cases), just great! They have many satisfied users.
I haven't told you about LittleNeo and his List. Being part of LittleNeo's List is a good way to get new visitors to your site and also to discover other web sites from around the world. A great feature to keep the people coming to NeoWORX and maybe the only reason why my Neoboard was still on the sidebar until recently. I discovered interesting blogs over there, most interestingly is the number of blogs that I already knew that I've seen on LittleNeo's list, actually it's not surprising since they do, for most, use the much appreciated NeoCounter.
I have had a few problems with the NeoBoard though. They tell you that during the trial period you have all the premium features but I hardly succeeded in customizing my NeoBoard. The US flag always shows even when I uncheck the "show my flag" box brrrr... irritating. But I was living with it. At some point, Meq was unable to post messages (oh you don't know Meq? check out the Little Pieces). Then, I was unable to post myself. Still this also allowed me to experience one of the good things about the Neoworx service, all I did was go to their homepage and post a message on the message board they have there to tell them about my problem, a little while later, it was working. It's amazing how they actually take the time to read and answer to the people who post messages there! I wonder how long they can keep this up. Oh yes and did I mention that they have multilanguage user support. Though it surprised me that there weren't more messages on the NeoBard at the NeoWORX homepage.
Before I knew it, my 14 day trial period was over and I saw giant ads on my Neoboard, and a message saying the Neoboard would be back in a few minutes, it bothered me quite a bit, but it was the free version after all...
Well I was thinking about having two message boards on the side bar! I don't think it's prohibited but probably it would confuse my visitors. I've discovered the Cbox, and I want to try it out for a while, it looks a bit more sober and customizations are easily made, I hope it will last longer than my NeoBoard.
Saturday, October 29, 2005
Introducing my Cbox
I'm using a Cbox now, just hoping it will last longer than my Neoboard. I'm a bit sad about getting rid of my Neoboard...
Bye my Neoboard
I'm taking off the Neoboard. It's been fun but it has to go.
Thank you to all those who stopped by to drop me a few lines.
Thank you to all those who stopped by to drop me a few lines.
Thursday, October 20, 2005
New title
To those of you who've been here before and who actually knew the title of this blog, and even used it in your links (Thank you! Thank you!) I'm informing you -just in case you didn't notice- that the title has changed.
It's no longer the "Chatterbox" but "Meeting people online". What's in a title anyway? Well, not much but I thought it was about time I changed it so it to reflect the way "things" have evolved (more on the evolution of "things" in future posts).
And also I think it's a good way to prevent people searching for blog chatterboxes to come here.
I don't think chatting in itself is something I enjoy but I do enjoy meeting new people, not only through Yahoo messenger though.
Lately I've been having a hard time finding endings to my posts...oh! I've found something...
I'll dare ask my beloved readers, what do you think of the new title? frankly?
It's no longer the "Chatterbox" but "Meeting people online". What's in a title anyway? Well, not much but I thought it was about time I changed it so it to reflect the way "things" have evolved (more on the evolution of "things" in future posts).
And also I think it's a good way to prevent people searching for blog chatterboxes to come here.
I don't think chatting in itself is something I enjoy but I do enjoy meeting new people, not only through Yahoo messenger though.
Lately I've been having a hard time finding endings to my posts...oh! I've found something...
I'll dare ask my beloved readers, what do you think of the new title? frankly?
Thursday, October 13, 2005
No children allowed in Yahoo ! chat rooms
I made a Google search for instant net fame and the #1 result was slashdot.org when I went all the way to the last page, the first result was also a page from slashdot.org. I went on Slashdot and learned about the new actions Yahoo is taking to "protect children".
Here's what Yahoo says: "The ability to create user rooms in Yahoo! Chat is currently unavailable."
"To enhance the user experience and compliance with our Terms of Service, Yahoo! Chat is now available to users who are 18 years of age or older."
It seems one thing they have not thought about in these measures is how to protect the children from themselves. I went once into Education rooms -not user created rooms, Yahoo rooms- and the kids that were there got me running out deciding I would never, ever go back in there. I was there thinking I would meet teachers and students discussing about teaching learning and other education related themes but no... I found only kids in there -I usually find kids in chat rooms annoying- and the ones who talked to me wanted to talk about one single thing that I think you can figure out.
Well, as long as it makes the children safer.
By the way, I met a 17-year-old Pakistani this morning in one of the Yahoo! Chat Help rooms.
Tags: yahoo chat
Here's what Yahoo says: "The ability to create user rooms in Yahoo! Chat is currently unavailable."
"To enhance the user experience and compliance with our Terms of Service, Yahoo! Chat is now available to users who are 18 years of age or older."
It seems one thing they have not thought about in these measures is how to protect the children from themselves. I went once into Education rooms -not user created rooms, Yahoo rooms- and the kids that were there got me running out deciding I would never, ever go back in there. I was there thinking I would meet teachers and students discussing about teaching learning and other education related themes but no... I found only kids in there -I usually find kids in chat rooms annoying- and the ones who talked to me wanted to talk about one single thing that I think you can figure out.
Well, as long as it makes the children safer.
By the way, I met a 17-year-old Pakistani this morning in one of the Yahoo! Chat Help rooms.
Tags: yahoo chat
Saturday, October 08, 2005
Another catastrophe
I just read about the earthquake in Pakistan and India. Really sad...
Even though I don't regularly check any online news media I do look at the headlines when I log on my Yahoo! mail. That's how I learned about this earthquake. I noticed they mentioned Kashmir. I thought, hey! don’t I know people who live there. It turned out the two Pakistanis I thought lived there actually live in Karachi. -For those of you who know about Pakistan's geography, please don't laugh at me.- I probably should add details to my contacts.
Even though I don't regularly check any online news media I do look at the headlines when I log on my Yahoo! mail. That's how I learned about this earthquake. I noticed they mentioned Kashmir. I thought, hey! don’t I know people who live there. It turned out the two Pakistanis I thought lived there actually live in Karachi. -For those of you who know about Pakistan's geography, please don't laugh at me.- I probably should add details to my contacts.
Thursday, September 15, 2005
Searching Searching
I have not posted anything lately! It's been more than twenty days since I've written "to Apostle John". I know, I'm being a bad blogger. On the other hand, I've had a few worries regarding my blogging activities and also, I'm way too busy to find time to write a decent post. On the other hand -a third one?-, I have so many things I wanted to write about, nothing that would change the face of the earth but 'stuff' that are sooo interesting I just have to write about them! Until I do that, I'll just share with you the queries that sent visitors to this blog, from the major search engines.
Why am I not surprised that they (Google/Msn) would wait for times of less activity to send me traffic? As if they were sending me this message saying, "Write more please. See, we love you, we send you visitors, please give us more pages to put in our cache, please..." Well as long as the people that come here from the search engines find what they are looking for. What were they looking for after all? Below is the list of the most recent search queries and a link to the page they led to.
My suggestion: "hi" or "hello" and then "how are u?" it always works when initiating a conversation.
I have two Yahoo! accounts and I did get a few offline messages when I logged on messenger with my 'main' ID; I suppose, no one is sending me offline messages anymore on my 'other' ID, and I thought they loved me, and I thought they cared *snif*
It could also be that Yahoo does not completely sign you out when you sign out and therefore it sends you the messages people send you when you are not online instead of keeping them on its servers which results in you not receiving them... huh?.. I did not make this up I read it on a forum.
I could write a post on that: "The effects of chatting"
Searching for Carboni! I have not heard from him since he was telling me that he was going back to Egypt.
Well, I've not written on that! I was talking about a muslim guy who wanted to marry a christian girl...
I have yet to find Yahlite, but there is a link to YahElite on the side bar
no comment!
Ah yes! it did that to you too!
Yeah, I'm not the only one getting that error code once in a while. For those of you who've experienced it, it might be that your Internet connection is not working too well.
What? Maybe you should ask Sudhu
What's so special about Tamil chatting?
Strange, did I write about hi5? I could...
Strange one....
Why am I not surprised that they (Google/Msn) would wait for times of less activity to send me traffic? As if they were sending me this message saying, "Write more please. See, we love you, we send you visitors, please give us more pages to put in our cache, please..." Well as long as the people that come here from the search engines find what they are looking for. What were they looking for after all? Below is the list of the most recent search queries and a link to the page they led to.
My suggestion: "hi" or "hello" and then "how are u?" it always works when initiating a conversation.
I have two Yahoo! accounts and I did get a few offline messages when I logged on messenger with my 'main' ID; I suppose, no one is sending me offline messages anymore on my 'other' ID, and I thought they loved me, and I thought they cared *snif*
It could also be that Yahoo does not completely sign you out when you sign out and therefore it sends you the messages people send you when you are not online instead of keeping them on its servers which results in you not receiving them... huh?.. I did not make this up I read it on a forum.
I could write a post on that: "The effects of chatting"
Searching for Carboni! I have not heard from him since he was telling me that he was going back to Egypt.
Well, I've not written on that! I was talking about a muslim guy who wanted to marry a christian girl...
I have yet to find Yahlite, but there is a link to YahElite on the side bar
no comment!
Ah yes! it did that to you too!
Yeah, I'm not the only one getting that error code once in a while. For those of you who've experienced it, it might be that your Internet connection is not working too well.
- y wont msn messenger sign me in
- msn messenger connection troubleshooter
- msn messenger connection troubleshooter
What? Maybe you should ask Sudhu
What's so special about Tamil chatting?
Strange, did I write about hi5? I could...
Strange one....
Wednesday, August 24, 2005
To Apostle John
Dear Apostle John,
"Are things safe right now in Haiti?"
I'm never too sure how to even begin to give an answer to that question. Have I ever been a victim of any form of violence? No. Thank God. But I know many, too many people who have.
Right now everyone here is focused on one single thing: 'Elections'. The UN officials, the head of the Police Forces, officials of the government, journalists and other ordinary people seem to be speaking in one voice saying basically that the violence is less now than it used to be.
I'm probably the only one in Port-au-Prince, who does not agree with that since I don't feel an increase sense of security when I'm out on the streets. People are still being kidnapped, others are being killed -a Canadian citizen was killed recently-, there are still areas deserted by the residents that are ruled by gangs aka 'rats'. I know people who, in the past months, have sent most of their family in other areas and closed their small business because their neighborhood is being taken over by outlaws -the same 'rats'- .
Businesses located downtown Port-au-Prince are either moving or simply closing. There are areas that people avoid at all cost and others that you only go to with extreme caution, and because you have no other choice. There have also been cases of presumed criminals being killed (lynching) by the population. Despite what the official voices had to say about those lynchings it seems the families of those 'criminals' -if they had any- may be the only ones deploring their deaths. On the contrary, you will hear people say how the population is too scared and too passive and how fear and passivity used to help the assassins/kidnappers a lot, now that the population is 'reacting' many believe that the 'rats' may be more hesitant to act openly now.
I know I like to make things look bad when I talk about the situation here but I can't help it because they are bad. Were they worse? Probably, there are fewer shootings on the streets actually they haven't report any recently.
On the other hand I have to say that many Christians have been relentlessly praying for the country; they spent weeks, days, nights, praying again and again and again, all across the country and even from abroad. In fact, many are still praying waiting for the blessing... This reminds me of the fact that in the areas ruled by the 'rats' the churches had to close. There are a few (not many) who seemed to have resumed their activities. At the same time, others are under constant threats by 'rats' asking them for money or saying they will set the church on fire or kidnap the members or the pastor. I know a case of a person who was kidnapped and a 'rat' went to the church where that person is affiliated to ask for money so they could free him....
I live in Port-au-Prince therefore, what I say about the situation concerns only Port-au-Prince, as for the rest of the country, things are different as always.
About my personal safety, well, as I said before, as long as the Lord is my Shepherd... His rod and His staff they comfort me…
Realizing this post had nothing to do with my blog's topic, I've chosen to address it to you in particular.
I appreciate your concern about my country and I also enjoy stoping by at your blog once in a while.
M.J.
"Are things safe right now in Haiti?"
I'm never too sure how to even begin to give an answer to that question. Have I ever been a victim of any form of violence? No. Thank God. But I know many, too many people who have.
Right now everyone here is focused on one single thing: 'Elections'. The UN officials, the head of the Police Forces, officials of the government, journalists and other ordinary people seem to be speaking in one voice saying basically that the violence is less now than it used to be.
I'm probably the only one in Port-au-Prince, who does not agree with that since I don't feel an increase sense of security when I'm out on the streets. People are still being kidnapped, others are being killed -a Canadian citizen was killed recently-, there are still areas deserted by the residents that are ruled by gangs aka 'rats'. I know people who, in the past months, have sent most of their family in other areas and closed their small business because their neighborhood is being taken over by outlaws -the same 'rats'- .
Businesses located downtown Port-au-Prince are either moving or simply closing. There are areas that people avoid at all cost and others that you only go to with extreme caution, and because you have no other choice. There have also been cases of presumed criminals being killed (lynching) by the population. Despite what the official voices had to say about those lynchings it seems the families of those 'criminals' -if they had any- may be the only ones deploring their deaths. On the contrary, you will hear people say how the population is too scared and too passive and how fear and passivity used to help the assassins/kidnappers a lot, now that the population is 'reacting' many believe that the 'rats' may be more hesitant to act openly now.
I know I like to make things look bad when I talk about the situation here but I can't help it because they are bad. Were they worse? Probably, there are fewer shootings on the streets actually they haven't report any recently.
On the other hand I have to say that many Christians have been relentlessly praying for the country; they spent weeks, days, nights, praying again and again and again, all across the country and even from abroad. In fact, many are still praying waiting for the blessing... This reminds me of the fact that in the areas ruled by the 'rats' the churches had to close. There are a few (not many) who seemed to have resumed their activities. At the same time, others are under constant threats by 'rats' asking them for money or saying they will set the church on fire or kidnap the members or the pastor. I know a case of a person who was kidnapped and a 'rat' went to the church where that person is affiliated to ask for money so they could free him....
I live in Port-au-Prince therefore, what I say about the situation concerns only Port-au-Prince, as for the rest of the country, things are different as always.
About my personal safety, well, as I said before, as long as the Lord is my Shepherd... His rod and His staff they comfort me…
Realizing this post had nothing to do with my blog's topic, I've chosen to address it to you in particular.
I appreciate your concern about my country and I also enjoy stoping by at your blog once in a while.
M.J.
Thursday, August 04, 2005
Archive search please
There is one other feature I would like Yahoo! messenger to have. I would like to be able to perform a search on my Message Archive. I've been asked why I go through the archives of my past conversations. What do you think? A message archive is a very useful thing, it helps you frame liars, retrieve interesting links that you were sent but forgot to bookmark or find something to talk about with someone who is sooo glad to see you come back online after a long time but whom you have completely forgotten.
I go through first conversations to "remember" people's asl, and if I'm writing a post one a single person I go through all the conversations I've had with him/her to be sure I have not left any interesting detail out. Many times I "discover" things that were said to me, I was supposed to be having a conversation but I was not paying enough attention to read all the IMs sent to me by one person.
This being said, why would I need the search feature for? Well, there was this time when I wanted to "retrieve" all the different spellings my country's name was giving by my chat friends; mission: nearly impossible. On another day I wanted to "remember" which Moroccan told me he had a friend here in Haiti, unsuccesfully; I remembered the conversation but not who it was I had it with... And finally I wanted to see how many people on my list lived in Mumbai, besides those I remembered of course, that wasn't too hard but I'm not 100% sure I found all of them. I think msn messenger has that feature more or less.
While making sure that there is no way for me to search through the chat archive I "discovered" archives of the conferences I participated in, I had no idea they were kept there.
Maybe I should write Yahoo! and tell them about all the features I would like their messenger to have, who knows, they might find my ideas interesting...
My Yahoo! Messenger has been acting a little strange lately.
I was trying to sign in, it told me it's connecting as usual, and then after a long while it sent me an error message saying that I've been signed out because I've signed in on another computer or device.
The first time it happened I thought someone had hacked my account, probably a stalker -yah right-... But I thought more likely it was just a problem with Yahoo! Then it happened again a few days later.
Now, now, I wouldn't want some guy to use my ID to Chat with my friends and having them asking me later on why I said this or that etc... Or worse, he would go and remove everyone from my address book and my Y! messenger contact list or worse he would change my password and I would no longer be able to use my Yahoo! account!!!
In fact I still think Yahoo! is to blame for this and not some hacker trying to take over my account.
It seems it's not only the Yahoo! Messenger but all Yahoo! that's having an odd behaviour. I am prompt for my password every once in a while when I'm using Yahoo mail. Today when I signed in I was asked to provide additional information on myself like my occupation etc. Later on when I clicked to open an email with an hi5 request from a friend, Yahoo! sent me on a Yahoo! 360°,I had to hit the back button of my browser to go back to the inbox and click on the message again, hopefully, this time it worked.
I go through first conversations to "remember" people's asl, and if I'm writing a post one a single person I go through all the conversations I've had with him/her to be sure I have not left any interesting detail out. Many times I "discover" things that were said to me, I was supposed to be having a conversation but I was not paying enough attention to read all the IMs sent to me by one person.
This being said, why would I need the search feature for? Well, there was this time when I wanted to "retrieve" all the different spellings my country's name was giving by my chat friends; mission: nearly impossible. On another day I wanted to "remember" which Moroccan told me he had a friend here in Haiti, unsuccesfully; I remembered the conversation but not who it was I had it with... And finally I wanted to see how many people on my list lived in Mumbai, besides those I remembered of course, that wasn't too hard but I'm not 100% sure I found all of them. I think msn messenger has that feature more or less.
While making sure that there is no way for me to search through the chat archive I "discovered" archives of the conferences I participated in, I had no idea they were kept there.
Maybe I should write Yahoo! and tell them about all the features I would like their messenger to have, who knows, they might find my ideas interesting...
My Yahoo! Messenger has been acting a little strange lately.
I was trying to sign in, it told me it's connecting as usual, and then after a long while it sent me an error message saying that I've been signed out because I've signed in on another computer or device.
The first time it happened I thought someone had hacked my account, probably a stalker -yah right-... But I thought more likely it was just a problem with Yahoo! Then it happened again a few days later.
Now, now, I wouldn't want some guy to use my ID to Chat with my friends and having them asking me later on why I said this or that etc... Or worse, he would go and remove everyone from my address book and my Y! messenger contact list or worse he would change my password and I would no longer be able to use my Yahoo! account!!!
In fact I still think Yahoo! is to blame for this and not some hacker trying to take over my account.
It seems it's not only the Yahoo! Messenger but all Yahoo! that's having an odd behaviour. I am prompt for my password every once in a while when I'm using Yahoo mail. Today when I signed in I was asked to provide additional information on myself like my occupation etc. Later on when I clicked to open an email with an hi5 request from a friend, Yahoo! sent me on a Yahoo! 360°,I had to hit the back button of my browser to go back to the inbox and click on the message again, hopefully, this time it worked.
Wednesday, August 03, 2005
Did I break Dharmvir's heart?
I hope not. But it sure looked like I did.
I told Dharmvir "I did not want this to become a real relationship". He was really surprised since he told me that I had never said that before. According to him, all I ever said in the past was that it wasn't possible. As awful as it may sound, I'm afraid that I can't refute what he said. I might not have made it clear to him like that before.
At first I did not take him too seriously, I believe you can be intrigued, interested, attracted to someone you have chatted with a few times but I don't believe you can fall in love with her. When I started taking him seriously I probably told him the usual, the same thing I tell anyone who's at the other end of the world and wants to be my boyfriend/husband or anything of the sort and that I suspect might maybe -you never know- be "serious" : we probably will never meet face to face so it wont happen. For me it's another way of saying that I don't even give it a second thought. The problem is, if the person is "really" in love, that unfortunately won't be enough, you know the myth about love being able to surmount all obstacles, Romeo and Juliet -or Tristan and Iseult- also believed in that.
I probably did not insist enough on me not wanting this love relationship. So to him it seemed like I did not think it will ever happen but if it did I probably would have nothing against it... maybe.
All I can say is, after reminding him of the reasons I gave him a few months ago for not even considering ever falling in love with him, all he said was "ok bye" and he was gone...
A few days later he was back online and I asked him whether he was mad and of course his answer was no.
We talked for a while and it was actually interesting. He had his web cam on and he showed me around his computer center, he also had three of his students who were there, two young women and a young man. Dharmvir looked so happy while chatting with me, he was smiling all the time. I did not know I could have that effect on someone at such a distance... And guess what? His smiling and looking all happy had nothing to do with me, well at least not too much, he was chatting with another friend who was telling him jokes. I had overestimated the power of love...
His students were smiling and asking about me, they were so curious, they asked him about me and wanted to see my picture. -Can you guess what he told them about me?- Dharmvir asked me not to break their hearts by refusing but I did not feel comfortable with the idea, so they did not get to see my picture though I have two different pictures on two yahoo profiles, if Dharmvir knew that he could have shown them but I suppose I never told him about those photos.
The talk went on and we came inevitably to the point where Dharmvir was telling me again about his love... He also sent me virtual flowers so I thanked him for the flowers. He asked if the thank you was only for the flowers and my answer was yes. He said bye to me when I ask whether he was leaving is told me I broke his heart and that I always do that...
Dharmvir still loves me.I don't know how he does it...
I told Dharmvir "I did not want this to become a real relationship". He was really surprised since he told me that I had never said that before. According to him, all I ever said in the past was that it wasn't possible. As awful as it may sound, I'm afraid that I can't refute what he said. I might not have made it clear to him like that before.
At first I did not take him too seriously, I believe you can be intrigued, interested, attracted to someone you have chatted with a few times but I don't believe you can fall in love with her. When I started taking him seriously I probably told him the usual, the same thing I tell anyone who's at the other end of the world and wants to be my boyfriend/husband or anything of the sort and that I suspect might maybe -you never know- be "serious" : we probably will never meet face to face so it wont happen. For me it's another way of saying that I don't even give it a second thought. The problem is, if the person is "really" in love, that unfortunately won't be enough, you know the myth about love being able to surmount all obstacles, Romeo and Juliet -or Tristan and Iseult- also believed in that.
I probably did not insist enough on me not wanting this love relationship. So to him it seemed like I did not think it will ever happen but if it did I probably would have nothing against it... maybe.
All I can say is, after reminding him of the reasons I gave him a few months ago for not even considering ever falling in love with him, all he said was "ok bye" and he was gone...
A few days later he was back online and I asked him whether he was mad and of course his answer was no.
We talked for a while and it was actually interesting. He had his web cam on and he showed me around his computer center, he also had three of his students who were there, two young women and a young man. Dharmvir looked so happy while chatting with me, he was smiling all the time. I did not know I could have that effect on someone at such a distance... And guess what? His smiling and looking all happy had nothing to do with me, well at least not too much, he was chatting with another friend who was telling him jokes. I had overestimated the power of love...
His students were smiling and asking about me, they were so curious, they asked him about me and wanted to see my picture. -Can you guess what he told them about me?- Dharmvir asked me not to break their hearts by refusing but I did not feel comfortable with the idea, so they did not get to see my picture though I have two different pictures on two yahoo profiles, if Dharmvir knew that he could have shown them but I suppose I never told him about those photos.
The talk went on and we came inevitably to the point where Dharmvir was telling me again about his love... He also sent me virtual flowers so I thanked him for the flowers. He asked if the thank you was only for the flowers and my answer was yes. He said bye to me when I ask whether he was leaving is told me I broke his heart and that I always do that...
Dharmvir still loves me.I don't know how he does it...
Monday, August 01, 2005
Mumbaikar friends
I learned about the torrential rains in Mumbai when visiting a blog that I discovered while "chatting" with Sudhamshu (23,Tamil Nadu) at blogexplosion.
For some reason, I decided to go on blogexplosion after many days of absence and I came across Sudhu and his blog and bookmarked it. And there I was, the day after, checking to look around the Professional Pakau only to learn about those rains.
It made me think about how I did not even talk to either Anay or Kayvian earlier that day because I was too busy.
I have quite a few people on my contact list who live in Mumbai. Those I have talked to were not too badly affected. Kayvian hopefully lives near his work place so it wasn't too bad for him, Ivan did spend two days at his office before being able to go home. Anay was not too far away from his home when it started raining heavily and since public transportation was no longer working at that time he did not go far. But his parents were away from home and they had to wait for a few days before they were able to come back. Like Anay told me, everyone in the area has his own story. There were unfortunately many deaths.
I haven't heard from the other Mumbaikars like Dhruv, Amit, Ram, Mike, Nikhil or Prashant and others -, I'm sending a few emails and hoping they are fine....
An Update
Dhruv wrote me back, he is fine, not affected at all it seems. Mike and Ram came online, I did not have time to talk to them but I suppose that if they can come online they are ok. I haven't heard from Amit or Prashant yet.
Second update
Amit wrote me back, he is fine. I talked to Nik came online, he was not at all affected.
Third update
I talked to Mike, he wasn't too much affected.
For some reason, I decided to go on blogexplosion after many days of absence and I came across Sudhu and his blog and bookmarked it. And there I was, the day after, checking to look around the Professional Pakau only to learn about those rains.
It made me think about how I did not even talk to either Anay or Kayvian earlier that day because I was too busy.
I have quite a few people on my contact list who live in Mumbai. Those I have talked to were not too badly affected. Kayvian hopefully lives near his work place so it wasn't too bad for him, Ivan did spend two days at his office before being able to go home. Anay was not too far away from his home when it started raining heavily and since public transportation was no longer working at that time he did not go far. But his parents were away from home and they had to wait for a few days before they were able to come back. Like Anay told me, everyone in the area has his own story. There were unfortunately many deaths.
I haven't heard from the other Mumbaikars like Dhruv, Amit, Ram, Mike, Nikhil or Prashant and others -, I'm sending a few emails and hoping they are fine....
An Update
Dhruv wrote me back, he is fine, not affected at all it seems. Mike and Ram came online, I did not have time to talk to them but I suppose that if they can come online they are ok. I haven't heard from Amit or Prashant yet.
Second update
Amit wrote me back, he is fine. I talked to Nik came online, he was not at all affected.
Third update
I talked to Mike, he wasn't too much affected.
Friday, July 22, 2005
Worries
Lately I've received fewer visits on my blog, one reason for this is probably the fact that I update less often the other reason would be that I "expose" my blog less than I used to.
In the beginning the only visitors I received were reviewers from blog directories. Then I started having one-time readers who came to read the post I wrote on them. I also had a few more avid readers who went all through my archives and then reminded me of a few things that I put here and had completely forgotten about. -I have even gone back an modified old posts a few times- And then I had Rizal who came here in the most unexpected and improbable way. And recently Apostle John dropped by.
As people are coming here and actually reading what I write -and as all my other activities are taking more and more of my time- I started thinking more than twice before putting anything on this blog. As I'm about to click on the publish button I start thinking about all those who might read what I'm putting on the Internet. I think about what the things I write say about myself and how I might even influence people who come here, I think about how uninteresting to anyone else than myself what I write is, I think about how I was supposed to have fun doing this but how I'm taking it more seriously suddenly because of how far a blog can reach; the world is too small and the Internet is everywhere.
Maybe I'm just loosing my inspiration and I'm trying to find an excuse to those posts that I obviously don't take enough time writing or maybe I'm just worrying too much -as usually- about things that are not all that important. That's enough introspection for one blog post.
In the beginning the only visitors I received were reviewers from blog directories. Then I started having one-time readers who came to read the post I wrote on them. I also had a few more avid readers who went all through my archives and then reminded me of a few things that I put here and had completely forgotten about. -I have even gone back an modified old posts a few times- And then I had Rizal who came here in the most unexpected and improbable way. And recently Apostle John dropped by.
As people are coming here and actually reading what I write -and as all my other activities are taking more and more of my time- I started thinking more than twice before putting anything on this blog. As I'm about to click on the publish button I start thinking about all those who might read what I'm putting on the Internet. I think about what the things I write say about myself and how I might even influence people who come here, I think about how uninteresting to anyone else than myself what I write is, I think about how I was supposed to have fun doing this but how I'm taking it more seriously suddenly because of how far a blog can reach; the world is too small and the Internet is everywhere.
Maybe I'm just loosing my inspiration and I'm trying to find an excuse to those posts that I obviously don't take enough time writing or maybe I'm just worrying too much -as usually- about things that are not all that important. That's enough introspection for one blog post.
Saturday, July 16, 2005
The Inevitable
I met a Haitian guy in one of those chat rooms! The odds of that happening are very low. This is even more surprising than when I received repeated visits from someone in Haiti on this blog.
I was always aware of the fact that I might meet a Haitian person one day but..., not like that.
I did meet a Haitian schoolgirl once last year but she thought I was a guy and was just too attached to me for some strange reason so we only talked once. This time it was different.
Desylf was chatting in English, he even asked me what I thought about Americans and referred to himself as an American. He told me that he was in Haiti recently, at the shores of Gonaïves, I thought he was in the US Navy and I was right. When he asked me to be his tour guide for his next trip to Haiti, I said "yeah, sure..." actually thinking "whatever, as if he were really going to come here..". When he told me he was serious, I thought "oh, so maybe he is coming, maybe but no time soon". Then, to my surprise, the second time we chatted, he's writing Creole!!! No way!
The guy is actually Haitian or at least of Haitian origins, I just can't believe he did not tell me that right from the start. I would never have guessed that he was Haitian, never! But now, there is no doubt, he is Haitian.
Scary! I could be talking to one of my relatives or ex-classmates without even knowing it... very scary...
I was always aware of the fact that I might meet a Haitian person one day but..., not like that.
I did meet a Haitian schoolgirl once last year but she thought I was a guy and was just too attached to me for some strange reason so we only talked once. This time it was different.
Desylf was chatting in English, he even asked me what I thought about Americans and referred to himself as an American. He told me that he was in Haiti recently, at the shores of Gonaïves, I thought he was in the US Navy and I was right. When he asked me to be his tour guide for his next trip to Haiti, I said "yeah, sure..." actually thinking "whatever, as if he were really going to come here..". When he told me he was serious, I thought "oh, so maybe he is coming, maybe but no time soon". Then, to my surprise, the second time we chatted, he's writing Creole!!! No way!
The guy is actually Haitian or at least of Haitian origins, I just can't believe he did not tell me that right from the start. I would never have guessed that he was Haitian, never! But now, there is no doubt, he is Haitian.
Scary! I could be talking to one of my relatives or ex-classmates without even knowing it... very scary...
Friday, July 08, 2005
How about msn Messenger?
In the "About", on the right, I say that I use Yahoo! Messenger, but it's not like Yahoo! is paying me or anything so I do use other IM programs like msn Messenger and ICQ once in a while.
But msn is one that I don't like at all, the only reason why I have it installed on the computer is because my university friends use it. Lately, it's been doing one of those things that I hate about it. I try signing in and it just fails every time without any apparent reason. I've been unable to chat with Rizal for the past days.
Msn is just not for me. With msn, you cannot enter chat rooms freely. And I still have awful memories of the days when it would ask me to download the latest version before I could even sign in, the connection was extremely slow so it took forever... The worst is that it did that almost every day, a real nightmare.
I tried to install the version 7.0 to see if I would be able to connect, still nothing. I tested the connection with the msn messenger connection troubleshooter and it tells me every thing is ok and asks me to send a report. I carefully fill the form only to find out that it wont let me submit it, telling me to enter my email address while I had already provided it.
I finally decided to do the one thing I should had done in the first place, I checked the Internet for the error code (81000306) it gave me. While reading what people wrote on many forums about similar problems I started thinking about the windows updates that I was too lazy to install... And finally, when I landed on an msn arabia page they seemed to be confirming my suspicions.
The Windows Updates just bug me, what I hate the most about them is the fact that you have to restart your computer, and then I never really know what are all those things that are installed. So I install the updates, I restart my computer I wait for the internet connection to come back up again -it was down-. I try signing in Y! Messenger and msn Messenger while I'm already chatting with a friend on Y!, msn tells me it can't sign me in. I guess it wasn't the updates after all. Well, I'll just wait until msn lets me sign in again, in the mean time I'm using yahoo!
[The following is a message to Rizal]
message to Rizal: "Rizal I need to tell you something" -need is not the exact/appropriate word- rather "Rizal I would like to tell you something!".
But msn is one that I don't like at all, the only reason why I have it installed on the computer is because my university friends use it. Lately, it's been doing one of those things that I hate about it. I try signing in and it just fails every time without any apparent reason. I've been unable to chat with Rizal for the past days.
Msn is just not for me. With msn, you cannot enter chat rooms freely. And I still have awful memories of the days when it would ask me to download the latest version before I could even sign in, the connection was extremely slow so it took forever... The worst is that it did that almost every day, a real nightmare.
I tried to install the version 7.0 to see if I would be able to connect, still nothing. I tested the connection with the msn messenger connection troubleshooter and it tells me every thing is ok and asks me to send a report. I carefully fill the form only to find out that it wont let me submit it, telling me to enter my email address while I had already provided it.
I finally decided to do the one thing I should had done in the first place, I checked the Internet for the error code (81000306) it gave me. While reading what people wrote on many forums about similar problems I started thinking about the windows updates that I was too lazy to install... And finally, when I landed on an msn arabia page they seemed to be confirming my suspicions.
The Windows Updates just bug me, what I hate the most about them is the fact that you have to restart your computer, and then I never really know what are all those things that are installed. So I install the updates, I restart my computer I wait for the internet connection to come back up again -it was down-. I try signing in Y! Messenger and msn Messenger while I'm already chatting with a friend on Y!, msn tells me it can't sign me in. I guess it wasn't the updates after all. Well, I'll just wait until msn lets me sign in again, in the mean time I'm using yahoo!
[The following is a message to Rizal]
message to Rizal: "Rizal I need to tell you something" -need is not the exact/appropriate word- rather "Rizal I would like to tell you something!".
Tuesday, July 05, 2005
Chat Archive Please
I wish Yahoo! would consider an archive feature in Y! Messenger for chat room conversations. Now that would be a very useful one!
I've often added people on my list after talking to them inside a chat room. As a person who relies heavily on the message archive to "remember" most of the people she chats with I would really appreciate a feature such as that one. When I have a second conversation with on of those people it is very common that I had forgotten their personal information, I might remember other things like the reason why we kept talking or something "interesting" he/she said but age and location are hard ones unless the person is much younger or older than I am and/or lived in an "unusual" place.There might be software out there that do this but I'm always a little hesitant to use add-ons.
I've often added people on my list after talking to them inside a chat room. As a person who relies heavily on the message archive to "remember" most of the people she chats with I would really appreciate a feature such as that one. When I have a second conversation with on of those people it is very common that I had forgotten their personal information, I might remember other things like the reason why we kept talking or something "interesting" he/she said but age and location are hard ones unless the person is much younger or older than I am and/or lived in an "unusual" place.There might be software out there that do this but I'm always a little hesitant to use add-ons.
Monday, July 04, 2005
Insignificant experiment with search engines
After experiencing an unannounced downtime in Blogger and being unable to post anything for at least a day I noticed that Google was no longer searching my blogs, they seem to still have at least this one in there index but the Google bots are no longer crawling them.
I was so glad when I first got visitors coming from Google and I couldn't wait for them to deep crawl my blog so they can give to people who are searching better result or just to give me something to brag about on the net. Well, it just didn't happen. I must admit I felt a little bad about it...On the other hand, Yahoo! Search which was also crawling my blog still kept me, they even deep crawled the blog. It's a little scary when you see how often I get hits from Inktomi on the blog –Yahoo! uses Inktomi technology to "search" the web and Inktomi uses Firefox when they stop by at my spot-. Yahoo has already deep crawled both of my blogs for this Blogger profile. Msn search has not yet indexed my blogs -what are they waiting for?-
I tried to search for "marguerite jasmin" with both Yahoo search and Google and Yahoo was the one with the most "relevant" results, by relevant I mean that they are related to no one else then me. Yahoo had my blog and my Blogger profile has first and second results and then they had many of my posts, a few comments I left on other blogs and of course other "irrelevant" results. Google of course has none of my blog and they don't have my blogger profile either only a few of the comments I left on very popular and high profile blogs. For those of you who did not know it, Google owns Blogger. It did seem odd that Yahoo would crawl Blogger more than Google did as if Yahoo took Blogger more seriously than Google did.
My first conclusion is: if I am not searching for something really technical or very specific, using two different search engines might be beneficial because they might actually give you different results. But old habits are hard to get rid of. Google is still my search engine of choice; I only use Yahoo! Search when I'm not satisfied with what I find with Google but if you want to search recent information from blogs it seems Technorati is a better alternative Google results are more likely to be outdated. In the end it all comes down to knowing the best tool to find the specific kind of information you are searching for.
My second conclusion is that you should be careful when you comment on someone's blog especially if it is a high profile one where your comment might be just one among a hundred others because you can always delete something you write on your blog but the odds on having a comment you put on some stranger's blog deleted are very low.
I was so glad when I first got visitors coming from Google and I couldn't wait for them to deep crawl my blog so they can give to people who are searching better result or just to give me something to brag about on the net. Well, it just didn't happen. I must admit I felt a little bad about it...On the other hand, Yahoo! Search which was also crawling my blog still kept me, they even deep crawled the blog. It's a little scary when you see how often I get hits from Inktomi on the blog –Yahoo! uses Inktomi technology to "search" the web and Inktomi uses Firefox when they stop by at my spot-. Yahoo has already deep crawled both of my blogs for this Blogger profile. Msn search has not yet indexed my blogs -what are they waiting for?-
I tried to search for "marguerite jasmin" with both Yahoo search and Google and Yahoo was the one with the most "relevant" results, by relevant I mean that they are related to no one else then me. Yahoo had my blog and my Blogger profile has first and second results and then they had many of my posts, a few comments I left on other blogs and of course other "irrelevant" results. Google of course has none of my blog and they don't have my blogger profile either only a few of the comments I left on very popular and high profile blogs. For those of you who did not know it, Google owns Blogger. It did seem odd that Yahoo would crawl Blogger more than Google did as if Yahoo took Blogger more seriously than Google did.
My first conclusion is: if I am not searching for something really technical or very specific, using two different search engines might be beneficial because they might actually give you different results. But old habits are hard to get rid of. Google is still my search engine of choice; I only use Yahoo! Search when I'm not satisfied with what I find with Google but if you want to search recent information from blogs it seems Technorati is a better alternative Google results are more likely to be outdated. In the end it all comes down to knowing the best tool to find the specific kind of information you are searching for.
My second conclusion is that you should be careful when you comment on someone's blog especially if it is a high profile one where your comment might be just one among a hundred others because you can always delete something you write on your blog but the odds on having a comment you put on some stranger's blog deleted are very low.
Saturday, July 02, 2005
Filipinas
I went into a Philippines' room in order to ask the meaning of two words (pinoy and chinoy) that I had read on a Filipino's blog. And I realized how some girls give Filipinas a bad name. I had one guy offering me $200 to chat about ...mmm.. ."stuff"... He expected me to be interested in the money and just say yes. Then I remembered it's not the first time a guy mistaking me for a Filipina "treats" me that way, insisting that I would like him, that he likes girls from the Philippines, that he has money, that he would come to the Philippines etc....
Then again I have heard stories about Filipinas wanting to leave their country at any cost, it's just awful, they don't mind not getting any respect from the guys. Still, I just hate it when guys act like that, I don't think any woman deserves to be treated that way. I did tell them that they should show these ladies more respect; I don't know whether they are actually going to do that...
Then again I have heard stories about Filipinas wanting to leave their country at any cost, it's just awful, they don't mind not getting any respect from the guys. Still, I just hate it when guys act like that, I don't think any woman deserves to be treated that way. I did tell them that they should show these ladies more respect; I don't know whether they are actually going to do that...
Friday, July 01, 2005
Unexpected encounter
I was a little busy therefore I did not stay online as much as I use to. When I came at 19:00 UTC, which is 00:30 in India time -I think-, I saw Dozy online! It seemed odd -if you knew Dozy a little you would think so too-. I thought I asked how come he was still there. And guess what? It wasn't Dozy, nooo. It was actually Dozy's Dad!!! Hopefully I did not send a sexy message to Dozy -as if ...hehehe-
From his writing I could tell it wasn't Dozy. I suddenly started sitting straight and preparing my most formal and polite response. -I couldn't believe I was actually chatting with Dozy's dad-. I mean, Dozy told me about his dad and the idea I have of this man is that of a very strict dad. I was already thinking about the consequences this could have on Dozy.
So of course I apologized very politely to mister Singh. He asked whether there was anything I needed (?) maybe he thought that I was some Indian friend of Dozy's. As I was taking leave of Dozy's dad and wishing him a good night he wished me "good dreams", a very nice man after all. Now I know where Dozy gets all his niceness from.
From his writing I could tell it wasn't Dozy. I suddenly started sitting straight and preparing my most formal and polite response. -I couldn't believe I was actually chatting with Dozy's dad-. I mean, Dozy told me about his dad and the idea I have of this man is that of a very strict dad. I was already thinking about the consequences this could have on Dozy.
So of course I apologized very politely to mister Singh. He asked whether there was anything I needed (?) maybe he thought that I was some Indian friend of Dozy's. As I was taking leave of Dozy's dad and wishing him a good night he wished me "good dreams", a very nice man after all. Now I know where Dozy gets all his niceness from.
Wednesday, June 29, 2005
Thinking about going to Mumbai?
Think again...
I met Shakeel (27, Mumbai) who works at a traveling agency, he's in charge of international air ticketing. I asked him to search how much it would cost to go from Port-au-Prince (Haiti) to Mumbai (India), and it cost about US $5000 -I guess I'll just have to postpone that trip until I get lots of dollar$$-.
It's not like I was actually planning to go there anyway.
I met Shakeel (27, Mumbai) who works at a traveling agency, he's in charge of international air ticketing. I asked him to search how much it would cost to go from Port-au-Prince (Haiti) to Mumbai (India), and it cost about US $5000 -I guess I'll just have to postpone that trip until I get lots of dollar$$-.
It's not like I was actually planning to go there anyway.
Monday, June 27, 2005
What's wrong with Yahoo Messenger?
I have not downloaded the Beta of the new version of Yahoo Messenger but lately, my Y! messenger 6 has been acting really weirdly. First of all, I don't get any offline messages. Now, that's very unfortunate since I usually get many of those because I don't stay constantly online. It's frustrating! I keep thinking about all those messages that I just missed, people telling me what they've been up to and why I don't see them online anymore or others answering my offline messages, I guess I'll just have to settle for email the next time I want to have a differed conversation with a person.
In that same week, at some point I was unable to see the emoticones when I clicked on the emoticone icon in the messenger window, many times when I went into the chat I could not view any list of rooms whatever category I chose, I had to click repetitively on a contact's name on my list before I finally saw the IM window. Some of these problems might have something to do with the fact that my CPU and memory were overloaded with this resource-hungry application I was using this week but definitely not all of them -like the offline messages that I don't get-.
I was thinking that maybe in a near future Yahoo will start doing like microsoft and not allow everyone to go freely in chat rooms, though the rooms are plagued by bots and booters, the conversations can be enjoyable and useful -sometimes-. One more thing that's annoying is when Yahoo keeps you inside a room while you've either left the chat completely or had already joined another room or even signed out of the messenger. They keep you persistently in a room for I don't know how long. More then once I "was" in two different rooms at the same time and I was getting PMs from people in both rooms.
An Update
Shortly after writing this I went on the messenger and I found offline messages, a few from people who probably saw me in some room where Yahoo has kept me for the whole weekend -I've been offline since saturday- and others from friends hoping I was just being invisible and not really offline.
In that same week, at some point I was unable to see the emoticones when I clicked on the emoticone icon in the messenger window, many times when I went into the chat I could not view any list of rooms whatever category I chose, I had to click repetitively on a contact's name on my list before I finally saw the IM window. Some of these problems might have something to do with the fact that my CPU and memory were overloaded with this resource-hungry application I was using this week but definitely not all of them -like the offline messages that I don't get-.
I was thinking that maybe in a near future Yahoo will start doing like microsoft and not allow everyone to go freely in chat rooms, though the rooms are plagued by bots and booters, the conversations can be enjoyable and useful -sometimes-. One more thing that's annoying is when Yahoo keeps you inside a room while you've either left the chat completely or had already joined another room or even signed out of the messenger. They keep you persistently in a room for I don't know how long. More then once I "was" in two different rooms at the same time and I was getting PMs from people in both rooms.
An Update
Shortly after writing this I went on the messenger and I found offline messages, a few from people who probably saw me in some room where Yahoo has kept me for the whole weekend -I've been offline since saturday- and others from friends hoping I was just being invisible and not really offline.
Saturday, June 25, 2005
You want to see hairs?
I was asking Dozy for permission to put his picture on my blog, of course his answer was that I needed no permissions -awwh!- Still there was one detail that was keeping me from doing it right away, I needed a picture of Dozy by himself and I did not have one.
We talked again a few days after that and he had taken a few pictures with his webcam; yahoo did not let me download the first one but I did get the second one in which he was wearing his turban, had a huge smile and looked like a character from the Arabian Nights. Then he put another picture of himself in the messenger window, and I was surprised almost chocked by this unexpected sight... Not only wasn't he wearing his turban but also he was wearing his hair down and it looked all frizzy like he had just come out of the shower. As much as I enjoy describing Dozy's hairs I enjoy sharing his photo with you even more, regardless of your answer to the title of this post.
Dozy and his hairs
Now people are going to think that I am crazy about hair, but like I said to Dozy, it's only about his hairs ...hehehe...
Ah! When I think that I met Dozy in an Italian room while neither one of us speak Italian...
We talked again a few days after that and he had taken a few pictures with his webcam; yahoo did not let me download the first one but I did get the second one in which he was wearing his turban, had a huge smile and looked like a character from the Arabian Nights. Then he put another picture of himself in the messenger window, and I was surprised almost chocked by this unexpected sight... Not only wasn't he wearing his turban but also he was wearing his hair down and it looked all frizzy like he had just come out of the shower. As much as I enjoy describing Dozy's hairs I enjoy sharing his photo with you even more, regardless of your answer to the title of this post.
Dozy and his hairs
Now people are going to think that I am crazy about hair, but like I said to Dozy, it's only about his hairs ...hehehe...
Ah! When I think that I met Dozy in an Italian room while neither one of us speak Italian...
Monday, June 20, 2005
Saying I love you in color
Dharmvir came back after a few weeks of absence, we used to chat every day... It was almost a ritual, I would get an international call, and I would know it was Dharmvir telling me that he is online. Now he came back and he is still telling me that he loves me! -Maybe I should take this more seriously...-
Trying to post a picture on this blog I discovered how Hello can be funny. I entered the caption and clicked the button to send the picture and I see a heart falling like in the yahoo falling hearts IMVironment, so I tried many captions with the word "love" and I saw the heart each time. It's probably because Hello is a sort of chatting/photo-sharing software,probably...
Trying to post a picture on this blog I discovered how Hello can be funny. I entered the caption and clicked the button to send the picture and I see a heart falling like in the yahoo falling hearts IMVironment, so I tried many captions with the word "love" and I saw the heart each time. It's probably because Hello is a sort of chatting/photo-sharing software,probably...
Not seeing user chat rooms
I was unable to go into user chat rooms during the weekend.
Here's what Yahoo has to say about it: " The ability to publish user-created chat rooms in the public Yahoo! Chat directory is currently unavailable. We are working on improvements to this service to enhance the user experience and compliance with our Terms of Service. "
That's very unfortunate because I have met many people in my rooms and small user rooms are usually more enjoyable, there are fewer bots and fewer people who send u PMs.
I guess I'll just spend less time chatting with randomly-met total strangers living at the other end of the world...
The weirdest thing happened to me today, I was invited to a conference by someone I did not know, I accepted and then realized it was a bot that had invited me, telling me that her name is Erica and that according to yahoo personal, we are a match. It’s the first time I got a conference invitation from a bot, are bots evolving?
Here's what Yahoo has to say about it: " The ability to publish user-created chat rooms in the public Yahoo! Chat directory is currently unavailable. We are working on improvements to this service to enhance the user experience and compliance with our Terms of Service. "
That's very unfortunate because I have met many people in my rooms and small user rooms are usually more enjoyable, there are fewer bots and fewer people who send u PMs.
I guess I'll just spend less time chatting with randomly-met total strangers living at the other end of the world...
The weirdest thing happened to me today, I was invited to a conference by someone I did not know, I accepted and then realized it was a bot that had invited me, telling me that her name is Erica and that according to yahoo personal, we are a match. It’s the first time I got a conference invitation from a bot, are bots evolving?
Saturday, June 18, 2005
Indian girl and husband shopping
I've spoken with an 18 year old Indian girl. She is not the first Indian girl I have ever chatted with but she is the first one to add me to her contact list. She was having problems with her computer, she asked for my help, I gave her advice but she wanted to know whether I had anyone nearby I could ask to come to help her. I guess she felt I wasn't competent enough, she did not seem to even want to follow my advices. Indian guys usually take me more seriously than that!
I had a marriage proposal(?) from an Egyptian guy. We had never talked before but still, I told him it was not possible because I can't marry a muslim. He asked for my religion, I told him I'm christian then he let me know there was no problem because he can marry a christian woman. I told him I wanted my children to be christian, then he said no, the children had to be like their father. I refused so he told me "it's over", then he was gone. I suppose he was really searching for a spouse!!??
Hopefully, I'm not husband shopping on the net, otherwise I might had already gotten married to a 20 year old Indian sikh living in Uttar Pradesh who also wanted to marry me; that was one day after he had told me about this european girl he was going to marry someday, he even had her picture on his profile at the time!
I had a marriage proposal(?) from an Egyptian guy. We had never talked before but still, I told him it was not possible because I can't marry a muslim. He asked for my religion, I told him I'm christian then he let me know there was no problem because he can marry a christian woman. I told him I wanted my children to be christian, then he said no, the children had to be like their father. I refused so he told me "it's over", then he was gone. I suppose he was really searching for a spouse!!??
Hopefully, I'm not husband shopping on the net, otherwise I might had already gotten married to a 20 year old Indian sikh living in Uttar Pradesh who also wanted to marry me; that was one day after he had told me about this european girl he was going to marry someday, he even had her picture on his profile at the time!
Thursday, June 16, 2005
Hairs, America and memory power
I was able to get a clearer look at Dozy's hairs. -I know what your thinking, 'not those hairs again...'-. Well, they still had a few strings hanging out but they looked better this time, knotted on top of Dozy's head. Whether Dozy has his cam on or not, his usual good mood is very contagious.
I like talking to people from America, by America I mean the whole continent north, south and central, they at least know where my country is. I met a Canadian who also knew the name of our former president, and also the fact that Wyclef Jean was from Haiti. I tried to impress him myself by telling him I knew about Terry Fox, it seemed to have worked... until I told him I first read about this famous Canadian from a children's book -what's wrong with that?-. I did do some Internet research on Terry Fox after reading about him...
I've been told more than once by my Indian net-friends mostly that I have good memory and each time it was for a detail that I actually remembered and not one that I had retrieved form my archives. I remembered where Sunny was on New Year's Eve, I remembered Ravi's hometown, these don't seem like the hardest things to remember.
I like talking to people from America, by America I mean the whole continent north, south and central, they at least know where my country is. I met a Canadian who also knew the name of our former president, and also the fact that Wyclef Jean was from Haiti. I tried to impress him myself by telling him I knew about Terry Fox, it seemed to have worked... until I told him I first read about this famous Canadian from a children's book -what's wrong with that?-. I did do some Internet research on Terry Fox after reading about him...
I've been told more than once by my Indian net-friends mostly that I have good memory and each time it was for a detail that I actually remembered and not one that I had retrieved form my archives. I remembered where Sunny was on New Year's Eve, I remembered Ravi's hometown, these don't seem like the hardest things to remember.
Wednesday, June 15, 2005
Who's this?
How can you really tell whom you're chatting with?
At the university, we used to group chat, one student would log with his ID, would meet people and we would either take turns at writing to her (yeah, mostly girls), or we would suggest to the typist what he should write. Therefore the girl was not talking to a single person but rather to a group of people without even knowing it.
I was talking to a young Indian man (26, Andhra Pradesh) whom I had met last year. The last time we chatted was in September 2004 -that's what my archive says-. I always thought of him as a nice guy, hard worker who takes time off work only when he's sick. I was quite surprised to see him online for two days in a row at this time instead of seeing him on sms like he used to be. I thought I said 'hi' to him.
We started talking and it was clear from his first few messages that there was something really different about him. I felt I was talking to a whole other person, then again how can I know for sure? I told him about it and he told me why he is different now, he was engaged, I thought, yes I can believe that, a girl can have that effect on a guy's life. But still, 'Sumit', just seemed to be someone I had never chatted with before, as much as I enjoyed talking to him last year I was not enjoying a bit of the conversation I was having with this guy.
He sounded like all those other strange people, asking me to always be his friend and all that kind of stuff, Sumit used to call me 'dude', he never talked to me that way. He sounded like he was hit on the head and became all jolly and started seeing life in pink. He had become so sensitive...
I told him my surprise and doubts. Then he told me he was in a life threatening accident and after escaping with minor bruises he decided to change his attitude towards life and towards people.
I kindda had a hard time swallowing that, since, he told me he was in his 'car' and was hit by a truck that made a U-turn in the middle of a street. He told me he lives in Delhi, as far as I can remember, I knew Sumit lived in Andhra Pradesh, though I am not 100% sure since it's been a long time since he had told me and of course I don't have the archive of our first conversation.
The first time we talked he was calling me 'dude' and now he is worried I would not want to be his 'friend' again because he was engaged, and that I would be jealous of his wife-to-be. That's odd, since last year he told me that his parents would start searching for a spouse for him during this year and at that time there were no worries about me being jealous. And again, I don't even remember him calling me 'friend' not even once and now there is this sudden attachment to me!
No, I'm sorry but I can't believe it. Still, he did tell me a few details that seemed to indicate that he is the same young man I chatted with last year, like the fact that we usually start talking a little while before my lunch time, that I was not wearing my hair down in the picture of me that he had seen, that I live in Haiti and that there was a natural disaster in my country last year and we talked about it.
I don't know if there is anything he can do to prove to me that he is the one he claims to be but I still am reluctant to believe him. One thing is for sure; I was not talking to the Sumit I once knew.
At the university, we used to group chat, one student would log with his ID, would meet people and we would either take turns at writing to her (yeah, mostly girls), or we would suggest to the typist what he should write. Therefore the girl was not talking to a single person but rather to a group of people without even knowing it.
I was talking to a young Indian man (26, Andhra Pradesh) whom I had met last year. The last time we chatted was in September 2004 -that's what my archive says-. I always thought of him as a nice guy, hard worker who takes time off work only when he's sick. I was quite surprised to see him online for two days in a row at this time instead of seeing him on sms like he used to be. I thought I said 'hi' to him.
We started talking and it was clear from his first few messages that there was something really different about him. I felt I was talking to a whole other person, then again how can I know for sure? I told him about it and he told me why he is different now, he was engaged, I thought, yes I can believe that, a girl can have that effect on a guy's life. But still, 'Sumit', just seemed to be someone I had never chatted with before, as much as I enjoyed talking to him last year I was not enjoying a bit of the conversation I was having with this guy.
He sounded like all those other strange people, asking me to always be his friend and all that kind of stuff, Sumit used to call me 'dude', he never talked to me that way. He sounded like he was hit on the head and became all jolly and started seeing life in pink. He had become so sensitive...
I told him my surprise and doubts. Then he told me he was in a life threatening accident and after escaping with minor bruises he decided to change his attitude towards life and towards people.
I kindda had a hard time swallowing that, since, he told me he was in his 'car' and was hit by a truck that made a U-turn in the middle of a street. He told me he lives in Delhi, as far as I can remember, I knew Sumit lived in Andhra Pradesh, though I am not 100% sure since it's been a long time since he had told me and of course I don't have the archive of our first conversation.
The first time we talked he was calling me 'dude' and now he is worried I would not want to be his 'friend' again because he was engaged, and that I would be jealous of his wife-to-be. That's odd, since last year he told me that his parents would start searching for a spouse for him during this year and at that time there were no worries about me being jealous. And again, I don't even remember him calling me 'friend' not even once and now there is this sudden attachment to me!
No, I'm sorry but I can't believe it. Still, he did tell me a few details that seemed to indicate that he is the same young man I chatted with last year, like the fact that we usually start talking a little while before my lunch time, that I was not wearing my hair down in the picture of me that he had seen, that I live in Haiti and that there was a natural disaster in my country last year and we talked about it.
I don't know if there is anything he can do to prove to me that he is the one he claims to be but I still am reluctant to believe him. One thing is for sure; I was not talking to the Sumit I once knew.
Tuesday, June 14, 2005
Liars, liars, liars -or- A very long post
So it's happened to everybody who's been in a chat room before. You talk to someone, he gives you basic information about himself, age, sex, location, and then after a while, he tells you, that at least one of these infos was wrong, "i'm a m", I'm really 16, my name is not John. You get the idea.
This is the story about a lie that went really far. And I thought I was a nice girl.=^_^=
I'm in a room, my room, and I meet someone, among others, who seems to be a guy and is interested in talking to me, nothing unusual so far. Inside the room, he was insisting I told him my name, of course I said no as usual, and as a reflex I asked whether he was an Indian, he didn't actually answer that question.
He sent me a personal message and we started a private conversation. He started by telling me his name, location and asking whether I wanted to know anything else about him. -Impressive, unusual, therefore interesting-. My name is Brian C., I'm from North Brisbane, Australia. I didn't even know there was a North Brisbane somewhere in Australia.
I liked that attitude and I told him my first name -I know it's no big deal-. I did not know or check which time zone North Brisbane was in but I did locate it on the Australia map.
One thing about a lie is that you have to maintain it, live by it. 'Brian' slept at about 3am or 4am -so he told me- on the days we chatted, he used the word 'mate' when talking about his male friends. I did not have much to say about his English considering that what he was using was actually 'chat language'. We spoke for a few days. 'Brian' was hilarious, funny, talkative, unpredictable, nice... I liked Brian. He put a lot of 'animation' in my room especially when he told them that I was a man (!!!), hopefully only one person in there seemed to take him seriously. We even went room hoping together; so many laughs, so much fun...He read my blog, -some parts of it at least - and he came out of it with the impression that most guys I chat with were hitting on me (really?).
'Brian' gave my ID to his 'Indian friend' 'Ankit'. He told me he had an Indian nickname guddu and he used the word 'ya' a lot -you smell something?-.
I suppose the indian nickname thing just slipped because when I asked 'Brian' what guddu meant he just told me he did not know.
Unlike 'Brian', his friend 'Ankit' was very calm, he spoke (wrote) slowly, took his time and had many interesting things to say about Brian, like: how I would have a crush on him if I saw him, how he ignores him when he's chatting with girls and how he's lucky to be able to attract girls so easily and also how he likes to remain unrevealed to the girls - I was telling 'Brian' a few days earlier that I liked to remain "unrevealed"-. Lucky Brian... Without even noticing it I had spent 2 hours talking to 'Ankit', I had never spent so much time talking to 'Brian' probably because he would have said much more in less time than 'Ankit'.
It seems that when I spoke to 'Brian' after talking to 'Ankit', our conversation would reflect in part something that I had said earlier to 'Ankit', and the same happened when I had a conversation with 'Brian' before talking with 'Ankit', 'Brian' ends up bringing up something that I was saying to 'Ankit' a while before... And so on.
I felt like writing about 'Brian' since the first time we chatted, there was so much I could have said then; but many little details about him and his 'friend' were bothering me.
'Brian' was going to see a movie with his friends, I thought: "Star wars" and he said, no it's not out yet over here, I thought "funny cause Rizal saw it and he lives in Perth". All Brian had to say about it is, "I have to check that". Then of course there is his 'Indian' nickname "guddu".
'Ankit' and 'Brian' have a lot in common, they even use similar language, and they seem to know each other very well and they both have yahoo IDs ending with 1985.
And finally, I knew for a fact that Brian had read my blog, but surprisingly enough, when I checked my counter statistics, I had no entries from North Brisbane, I had only two Australian visitors, Rizal from Perth and a stranger from another location in Australia.
I did not doubt Brian from the start, but as I was getting ready to post something about him and I wanted to be sure that I would not look like a fool after writing enthusiastically about this young Aussie only to have to write later on that he had played a bad joke on me.
As my doubts grew with the days, I needed to check where exactly in the world 'Brian' was. I gave him a link to one of my post pages and what do you know, 'Brian' is actually in India -not a big surprise-.
I asked Brian to tell me the truth, "...I told you the truth about myself..., why did you lie to me...?" "...where do you live?..."
Unfortunately he kept on lying, I guess he was just not expecting these questions and probably felt bad about lying and maybe thought I would "dump" him when I discover the truth -ok, so maybe he doesn't really care-.
When I told him I knew for a fact that he was currently in India he had no choice but to admit being an Indian living in Mumbai and that he had given me a friend's asl. -What do you know...-.
I was mad, rightfully mad; he had lied to me for no reason at all... I felt like an idiot. The name, the location, and what else, is there any truth in all he's been telling me?
The worst part of this is that my mood was obvious to other people. Which brings me to Kayvian. Kayvian told me the words I needed to hear (read), to get this episode behind me, he told me to chill, and reminded me that I met enough people on the net. I was spoiling the conversation with a nice person (Kayvian) because of a few lies I had a hard time digesting.
'Brian' who is really(?) Pankaj did say he was sorry and was afraid I would be angry at him -what did you expect-. He told me everything else is true except the name and location. I suppose one of the reasons I took this so bad is because Brian or Pankaj is someone I actually enjoyed chatting with.
I became a little paranoid afterwards, I was starting to think that maybe 'Ankit' and 'Brian' were the exact same person I gave 'Ankit' a hard time when he came online later that day. I pressured him to tell me the truth, he did apologize, what more could he do, Pankaj (ex-Brian) told me that he brought 'Ankit' into this and that it was not his fault. At some point I even thought it was Dhruv playing a joke on me...
I suppose I believe people too easily because I actually believe what they tell me now. I suppose I could choose not to believe them but I would have nothing to gain from that and I must admit that I'm a little tired playing detectives with those kids, I have better things to do, honest people to talk to. Then again Pankaj told me he would come back online only in November(!), and since Pankaj has been offline, Ankit has been too...
This is the story about a lie that went really far. And I thought I was a nice girl.=^_^=
I'm in a room, my room, and I meet someone, among others, who seems to be a guy and is interested in talking to me, nothing unusual so far. Inside the room, he was insisting I told him my name, of course I said no as usual, and as a reflex I asked whether he was an Indian, he didn't actually answer that question.
He sent me a personal message and we started a private conversation. He started by telling me his name, location and asking whether I wanted to know anything else about him. -Impressive, unusual, therefore interesting-. My name is Brian C., I'm from North Brisbane, Australia. I didn't even know there was a North Brisbane somewhere in Australia.
I liked that attitude and I told him my first name -I know it's no big deal-. I did not know or check which time zone North Brisbane was in but I did locate it on the Australia map.
One thing about a lie is that you have to maintain it, live by it. 'Brian' slept at about 3am or 4am -so he told me- on the days we chatted, he used the word 'mate' when talking about his male friends. I did not have much to say about his English considering that what he was using was actually 'chat language'. We spoke for a few days. 'Brian' was hilarious, funny, talkative, unpredictable, nice... I liked Brian. He put a lot of 'animation' in my room especially when he told them that I was a man (!!!), hopefully only one person in there seemed to take him seriously. We even went room hoping together; so many laughs, so much fun...He read my blog, -some parts of it at least - and he came out of it with the impression that most guys I chat with were hitting on me (really?).
'Brian' gave my ID to his 'Indian friend' 'Ankit'. He told me he had an Indian nickname guddu and he used the word 'ya' a lot -you smell something?-.
I suppose the indian nickname thing just slipped because when I asked 'Brian' what guddu meant he just told me he did not know.
Unlike 'Brian', his friend 'Ankit' was very calm, he spoke (wrote) slowly, took his time and had many interesting things to say about Brian, like: how I would have a crush on him if I saw him, how he ignores him when he's chatting with girls and how he's lucky to be able to attract girls so easily and also how he likes to remain unrevealed to the girls - I was telling 'Brian' a few days earlier that I liked to remain "unrevealed"-. Lucky Brian... Without even noticing it I had spent 2 hours talking to 'Ankit', I had never spent so much time talking to 'Brian' probably because he would have said much more in less time than 'Ankit'.
It seems that when I spoke to 'Brian' after talking to 'Ankit', our conversation would reflect in part something that I had said earlier to 'Ankit', and the same happened when I had a conversation with 'Brian' before talking with 'Ankit', 'Brian' ends up bringing up something that I was saying to 'Ankit' a while before... And so on.
I felt like writing about 'Brian' since the first time we chatted, there was so much I could have said then; but many little details about him and his 'friend' were bothering me.
'Brian' was going to see a movie with his friends, I thought: "Star wars" and he said, no it's not out yet over here, I thought "funny cause Rizal saw it and he lives in Perth". All Brian had to say about it is, "I have to check that". Then of course there is his 'Indian' nickname "guddu".
'Ankit' and 'Brian' have a lot in common, they even use similar language, and they seem to know each other very well and they both have yahoo IDs ending with 1985.
And finally, I knew for a fact that Brian had read my blog, but surprisingly enough, when I checked my counter statistics, I had no entries from North Brisbane, I had only two Australian visitors, Rizal from Perth and a stranger from another location in Australia.
I did not doubt Brian from the start, but as I was getting ready to post something about him and I wanted to be sure that I would not look like a fool after writing enthusiastically about this young Aussie only to have to write later on that he had played a bad joke on me.
As my doubts grew with the days, I needed to check where exactly in the world 'Brian' was. I gave him a link to one of my post pages and what do you know, 'Brian' is actually in India -not a big surprise-.
I asked Brian to tell me the truth, "...I told you the truth about myself..., why did you lie to me...?" "...where do you live?..."
Unfortunately he kept on lying, I guess he was just not expecting these questions and probably felt bad about lying and maybe thought I would "dump" him when I discover the truth -ok, so maybe he doesn't really care-.
When I told him I knew for a fact that he was currently in India he had no choice but to admit being an Indian living in Mumbai and that he had given me a friend's asl. -What do you know...-.
I was mad, rightfully mad; he had lied to me for no reason at all... I felt like an idiot. The name, the location, and what else, is there any truth in all he's been telling me?
The worst part of this is that my mood was obvious to other people. Which brings me to Kayvian. Kayvian told me the words I needed to hear (read), to get this episode behind me, he told me to chill, and reminded me that I met enough people on the net. I was spoiling the conversation with a nice person (Kayvian) because of a few lies I had a hard time digesting.
'Brian' who is really(?) Pankaj did say he was sorry and was afraid I would be angry at him -what did you expect-. He told me everything else is true except the name and location. I suppose one of the reasons I took this so bad is because Brian or Pankaj is someone I actually enjoyed chatting with.
I became a little paranoid afterwards, I was starting to think that maybe 'Ankit' and 'Brian' were the exact same person I gave 'Ankit' a hard time when he came online later that day. I pressured him to tell me the truth, he did apologize, what more could he do, Pankaj (ex-Brian) told me that he brought 'Ankit' into this and that it was not his fault. At some point I even thought it was Dhruv playing a joke on me...
I suppose I believe people too easily because I actually believe what they tell me now. I suppose I could choose not to believe them but I would have nothing to gain from that and I must admit that I'm a little tired playing detectives with those kids, I have better things to do, honest people to talk to. Then again Pankaj told me he would come back online only in November(!), and since Pankaj has been offline, Ankit has been too...
Monday, June 13, 2005
Kayvian
Kayvian (26,Mumbai) has one of those unfamiliar names which spelling I can remember without any effort -probably because his name and yahoo ID are the same-. He is one of those rare people who actually talk with others inside chat rooms. He is also funny on the occasion.
According to Kayvian, we first chatted about my blog. He was a little excited and embarrassed at the same time about the fact that I would write about him on my blog. I felt like a celebrity writer!... He asked how come I was into programming and not into editorial? -I'm not sure my writing skills are so good!!!-
We have not talked too much but I have enjoyed our short conversations. I like the ways he's answers my interrogations, the way he seems to pay lots of attention to the things that I tell him even when they have nothing to do with him. A nice guy.
According to Kayvian, we first chatted about my blog. He was a little excited and embarrassed at the same time about the fact that I would write about him on my blog. I felt like a celebrity writer!... He asked how come I was into programming and not into editorial? -I'm not sure my writing skills are so good!!!-
We have not talked too much but I have enjoyed our short conversations. I like the ways he's answers my interrogations, the way he seems to pay lots of attention to the things that I tell him even when they have nothing to do with him. A nice guy.
Thursday, June 09, 2005
Dhruv - or - What a blog post can do
Ahww! I'm finally writing about someone who writes more than I do when we chat -at least that's what my offline archive reader says-. I have introduced you to "Dhruv" (21,India) in "Misadventure in chat land".
Well, it started out on an ordinary chatting evening, I was searching for chatters who have web sites -yeah I'll just let you wonder why-. I suppose he sent me a PM first -probably-. It was a rocky start, I was only interested in people with web sites and he wasn't one of them, I was on my way to move on.
But he did say something to me that made me think I should add him to my list so I can talk to him on another day -I really had to leave-. Talking about how busy girls are in Indian rooms he said: "the girl boy ratio is 2:8". And I thought "oh this guy sounds interesting", I mean do you imagine the average chatter saying something like that -I don't- I sensed the potential, there could be 'interesting' chatting sessions between us in the near future.
I insisted I could not stay but I guess he thought I just did not want to talk to him -the ignore feature is very efficient for that-. I stayed longer than I should have (30 extra minutes), we had a misunderstanding, he thought I was a "punjbai charm" :)),- we still get a few of those (misunderstandings) once in a while-. He has a 'unique' English, usually well chosen words but odd syntax (grammar), I don't always decode his messages successfully, you can tell that I'm not into all those chat codes.
Now, things got really 'interesting' when we 'saw' each other. He was so surpriiiiiiiiiiiised to see that I was black and I thought the young man in his picture was Caucasian (i.e. white). He was like "show me your real picture" and I was like "you're kidding me, this is not you". He turned his cam on and I had to accept the fact that it was him, the picture looked like a still from his web cam I still thought he looked white and with his trendy glasses he looked more like an American high-schooler than a 21-year-old Indian. He thought I was from Punjab so he could not believe I was black -I agree, that would be quite unusual- . As he put it "[his] dreams where shattered". Yep, shattering someone's dreams is also something you can do on a first chat :D. –
Dhruv is very talkative and he is very interested in internet related topics, he's always downloading something, he has used booters (!) and still uses YIM add-ons to do things like see who's using the stealth settings to appear invisible to him -at least that's what he told me!...- He can get really 'enthusiastic' when talking about computer related topics.
It seemed, thought, that after that first day, our chats became more 'polite', Dhruv would say 'formal'. But one event was about to change that, first I got 'booted' -at least I think I did- I told him about it and he told me about Yahlite, then I wrote about it and the next thing I know people where coming to my site from Yahoo Search and Google. The story goes on but it all started with what he told me. I just had to tell him what happened, and have him read the post where I mentioned him. Not only did he read it but he also seemed to have dug deeper than anyone else has ever dug all the way into my archives. I'm not sure how to describe what happened afterwards, it was just great, we had so much fun when he came back from this reading session, he's even thinking about starting his own blog -a few days ago he had no clue what a blog was :))-.
Well, it started out on an ordinary chatting evening, I was searching for chatters who have web sites -yeah I'll just let you wonder why-. I suppose he sent me a PM first -probably-. It was a rocky start, I was only interested in people with web sites and he wasn't one of them, I was on my way to move on.
But he did say something to me that made me think I should add him to my list so I can talk to him on another day -I really had to leave-. Talking about how busy girls are in Indian rooms he said: "the girl boy ratio is 2:8". And I thought "oh this guy sounds interesting", I mean do you imagine the average chatter saying something like that -I don't- I sensed the potential, there could be 'interesting' chatting sessions between us in the near future.
I insisted I could not stay but I guess he thought I just did not want to talk to him -the ignore feature is very efficient for that-. I stayed longer than I should have (30 extra minutes), we had a misunderstanding, he thought I was a "punjbai charm" :)),- we still get a few of those (misunderstandings) once in a while-. He has a 'unique' English, usually well chosen words but odd syntax (grammar), I don't always decode his messages successfully, you can tell that I'm not into all those chat codes.
Now, things got really 'interesting' when we 'saw' each other. He was so surpriiiiiiiiiiiised to see that I was black and I thought the young man in his picture was Caucasian (i.e. white). He was like "show me your real picture" and I was like "you're kidding me, this is not you". He turned his cam on and I had to accept the fact that it was him, the picture looked like a still from his web cam I still thought he looked white and with his trendy glasses he looked more like an American high-schooler than a 21-year-old Indian. He thought I was from Punjab so he could not believe I was black -I agree, that would be quite unusual- . As he put it "[his] dreams where shattered". Yep, shattering someone's dreams is also something you can do on a first chat :D. –
Dhruv is very talkative and he is very interested in internet related topics, he's always downloading something, he has used booters (!) and still uses YIM add-ons to do things like see who's using the stealth settings to appear invisible to him -at least that's what he told me!...- He can get really 'enthusiastic' when talking about computer related topics.
It seemed, thought, that after that first day, our chats became more 'polite', Dhruv would say 'formal'. But one event was about to change that, first I got 'booted' -at least I think I did- I told him about it and he told me about Yahlite, then I wrote about it and the next thing I know people where coming to my site from Yahoo Search and Google. The story goes on but it all started with what he told me. I just had to tell him what happened, and have him read the post where I mentioned him. Not only did he read it but he also seemed to have dug deeper than anyone else has ever dug all the way into my archives. I'm not sure how to describe what happened afterwards, it was just great, we had so much fun when he came back from this reading session, he's even thinking about starting his own blog -a few days ago he had no clue what a blog was :))-.
Ravi
Ravi is one of those people I have been chatting with since last year -I don't remember when we started exactly-. He is about one year older than I and we both work as programmers. He did not see the point in me writing about him here -really?-, but he had no objections -that's Ravi alright-.
Until recently, every time I saw a picture of him, it was like seeing a different person, in one he looked very young and shaved, in another he would look big, old, with a huge mustache and in another one he would look slim with a tiny mustache, and in another one he would have yet a totally different appearance. The problem is he was not showing me these pictures in chronological order.
I have told my name to Ravi, but he still calls me "freed", that's how he's been calling since the first time we chatted. Why he calls me that? Because it's short for "freedhook", the ID I was using when I first chatted with him -I know I have too many IDs-. He is one of those people who probably thought I was a guy at first, it seems that even though I told him I'm a woman, he did not pay too much attention to that detail at the time.
Until recently, every time I saw a picture of him, it was like seeing a different person, in one he looked very young and shaved, in another he would look big, old, with a huge mustache and in another one he would look slim with a tiny mustache, and in another one he would have yet a totally different appearance. The problem is he was not showing me these pictures in chronological order.
I have told my name to Ravi, but he still calls me "freed", that's how he's been calling since the first time we chatted. Why he calls me that? Because it's short for "freedhook", the ID I was using when I first chatted with him -I know I have too many IDs-. He is one of those people who probably thought I was a guy at first, it seems that even though I told him I'm a woman, he did not pay too much attention to that detail at the time.
How old are you?
It's amazing how people will lie about their age for apparently no reason.
I'm talking to a young man from South Africa, he tells me he's 18 -oh! a young one!, I thought- then, he invites me to view his web cam: he looked like a kid. So I tell him, ''you look young'', more like 16, and he admits being only 15 (!!!).
I'm wondering just how many people lied to me about their age (?). I usually give people the benefit of the doubt, I accept what they say but I don't put faith in it, it's not like they can actually prove any of what they say about themselves!
I'm talking to a young man from South Africa, he tells me he's 18 -oh! a young one!, I thought- then, he invites me to view his web cam: he looked like a kid. So I tell him, ''you look young'', more like 16, and he admits being only 15 (!!!).
I'm wondering just how many people lied to me about their age (?). I usually give people the benefit of the doubt, I accept what they say but I don't put faith in it, it's not like they can actually prove any of what they say about themselves!
Friday, June 03, 2005
Top 12
The twelve questions I am asked the most
1. asl
meaning: age sex location
2. how r u
3. where u from
I guess the asl is not enough(!?) for some or maybe they are just not sure what or where Haiti is
4.ur age
5. u have cam
no I don't, hopefully!
6. u have a pic
not now...
7. what is ur name
if I tell them, most will forget it before the end of the conversation
8. what r ur hobbies
euh,hmm,huh,mmmm
9. r u married
no
10. u have mic
no
11. u have a boyfriend
why? you're interested?
12. are u there
I'm either busy or tired or bored or just disconnected
1. asl
meaning: age sex location
2. how r u
3. where u from
I guess the asl is not enough(!?) for some or maybe they are just not sure what or where Haiti is
4.ur age
5. u have cam
no I don't, hopefully!
6. u have a pic
not now...
7. what is ur name
if I tell them, most will forget it before the end of the conversation
8. what r ur hobbies
euh,hmm,huh,mmmm
9. r u married
no
10. u have mic
no
11. u have a boyfriend
why? you're interested?
12. are u there
I'm either busy or tired or bored or just disconnected
Maybe the last update on Pablo
Pablo (see Day 1, Day 3, Day 6 and maybe a few other posts), surprised me maybe for the last time. After a few weeks of chatting and getting along very well, being surprised day after day by that young man, I was really enjoying communicating with him. He gave me the ultimate surprise.
Pablo is someone I have trusted with 'information' that I don't give to others -naive girl-, he is a person I appreciate a lot even though we 'only' chat.
In the past, I would rarely ask guys or gals whether they were married or not, I didn't care since I didn't think it would make any difference. I might have been wrong and what happened with Pablo made me change my attitude a little bit.
Even though I did actually ask him whether he was married -I must admit I was just playing because I sincerely did not think he was- and he did answer no. He came back after about a week without chatting with me and told me he had lied(?) and that he is actually married (WHAT!!!!!!). Really hard to believe, I was speechless...
I did not understand why he felt the need to lie or why he did not tell me the truth earlier.
I'm not mad at him for that -oh well I probably will never know exactly how many times I've been lied to on Y!messenger- but he does not come online as often or at the same times anymore therefore I don't think we will be saying much to each other in the days/weeks or even months to come.
Pablo is someone I have trusted with 'information' that I don't give to others -naive girl-, he is a person I appreciate a lot even though we 'only' chat.
In the past, I would rarely ask guys or gals whether they were married or not, I didn't care since I didn't think it would make any difference. I might have been wrong and what happened with Pablo made me change my attitude a little bit.
Even though I did actually ask him whether he was married -I must admit I was just playing because I sincerely did not think he was- and he did answer no. He came back after about a week without chatting with me and told me he had lied(?) and that he is actually married (WHAT!!!!!!). Really hard to believe, I was speechless...
I did not understand why he felt the need to lie or why he did not tell me the truth earlier.
I'm not mad at him for that -oh well I probably will never know exactly how many times I've been lied to on Y!messenger- but he does not come online as often or at the same times anymore therefore I don't think we will be saying much to each other in the days/weeks or even months to come.
Wednesday, June 01, 2005
It's all about hairs
Ok, so I finally saw Dozy's "hairs". After customary salutations,he asked me, "You want to see hairs?" "...see...".Well, I saw as much as you can see while viewing images taken by a web cam in a room with very little light. I could barely recognize Dozy, as a matter of fact I did not recognize him, his hair was all fuzzy, little strings hanging out all over his head, I'll say it needs a conditioning shampoo and then a blow dry to have it looking neat and maybe also some anti-static serum or lotion. I wanted to see the actual length of his hair but the connection was awful and I did not get that chance.
A note to anybody reading this: do not take what I write here too seriously.
A note to anybody reading this: do not take what I write here too seriously.
Tuesday, May 31, 2005
Young chatters
I don't know what's happening to me lately maybe I've started to soften a little... I usually avoid chatting with teen age boys because they usually want to talk about one single thing -I'm sure you can guess what that is-. Well, lately, especially in my chat rooms I have been meeting and befriending an increasing number of young chatters, 21,20,16,15,14 even 13. The youngest ones got me worried, you imagine those kids in the chat rooms meeting all those wild adults... And of course those children can be really naive.
I used to think that I got along well only with people about my age (24,25), with younger ones? no, with older ones? not really. But I do meet very interesting and nice people in their early 20s, girls and boys(mostly) even a few teen-agers have caught my attention. I met an American teen-ager who lives in Iraq(!), a teen age Filipina not knowing what a profile is and wondering how I guessed where she was from, a young American girl who came into my room to see what the grown ups were up to in chat rooms. To me it seems that a kid in a chat room is like a lamb in a jungle.
I used to think that I got along well only with people about my age (24,25), with younger ones? no, with older ones? not really. But I do meet very interesting and nice people in their early 20s, girls and boys(mostly) even a few teen-agers have caught my attention. I met an American teen-ager who lives in Iraq(!), a teen age Filipina not knowing what a profile is and wondering how I guessed where she was from, a young American girl who came into my room to see what the grown ups were up to in chat rooms. To me it seems that a kid in a chat room is like a lamb in a jungle.
Rizal
Rizal (28,Perth) is the first -and still only- person I met thanks to this blog. He's from Singapore but lives in Australia. He came on chatterbox from technorati thanks to my Dharmvir post. We chat with msn(!) rather that Yahoo. You can check out his blog g®ëeNzØph®ëni@ LaiR v5.1.1. He's an IT professional and has designed his blog himself. A cool mate.
Haiti?
When people ask me for my asl and I tell them I'm from Haiti, most of them don't have the slightest clue where that is, many confuse it with Tahiti and one person even thought I was in some Hawaiian island. When I speak to Indians they sometimes think Haiti is somewhere in their country.
When I tell people Haiti is in the Caribbean, it means nothing to them since they have no idea what the Caribbean is. I try to say it's in Central America but many people think Central America is somewhere in the USA. Lately I tried to say that it's near the Dominican Republic and Cuba and Jamaica thinking that these countries are well known but still it doesn't work.
I have come to the conclusion that most people in the world are just not as interested in geography as I am and that my country is really small -in size- and just not as well known as I thought it was, in spite of the headlines in International news media.
I suppose I could say I'm in the West Indies but people in Asia and Oceania would probably think we are part of the smaller Caribbean islands where they play cricket. But Haiti is not a former British colony, we were a French colony until 1804(independence year), we don't play cricket. So what's the solution? Just let them find out by themselves where it is if they are really interested in knowing where I am in this world.
When I tell people Haiti is in the Caribbean, it means nothing to them since they have no idea what the Caribbean is. I try to say it's in Central America but many people think Central America is somewhere in the USA. Lately I tried to say that it's near the Dominican Republic and Cuba and Jamaica thinking that these countries are well known but still it doesn't work.
I have come to the conclusion that most people in the world are just not as interested in geography as I am and that my country is really small -in size- and just not as well known as I thought it was, in spite of the headlines in International news media.
I suppose I could say I'm in the West Indies but people in Asia and Oceania would probably think we are part of the smaller Caribbean islands where they play cricket. But Haiti is not a former British colony, we were a French colony until 1804(independence year), we don't play cricket. So what's the solution? Just let them find out by themselves where it is if they are really interested in knowing where I am in this world.
Me? An Indian?
My chatting experience as I am living it now only started last year. During these months, I have met many Indians in Yahoo chat rooms. At first there were just random meetings in various rooms. As I learned more about India and started to appreciate some of my new Indian friends I started going into Indian chat rooms to meet more Indians. But as I think of it in retrospect, my best Indian friends -the ones I chat with most often- are not the ones I met in Indian rooms except maybe for Dhruv.
Lately many of the new Indians I meet think that I'm from India because I know a little about Andhra Pradesh or Maharashtra or Kanakarta or Tamil Nadu. I guess a little geographical knowledge can take you a long way. And thanks to Dhruv (again) I know what an NRI is. I suppose I could masquerade as an Indian if I wanted but what for? There are already so many real Indians out there! I have also noticed that most Indians I chat with have no idea where Haiti is -that's what you get for living in a small country-
Lately many of the new Indians I meet think that I'm from India because I know a little about Andhra Pradesh or Maharashtra or Kanakarta or Tamil Nadu. I guess a little geographical knowledge can take you a long way. And thanks to Dhruv (again) I know what an NRI is. I suppose I could masquerade as an Indian if I wanted but what for? There are already so many real Indians out there! I have also noticed that most Indians I chat with have no idea where Haiti is -that's what you get for living in a small country-
Thursday, May 26, 2005
How to add me
Want to add me to your messenger list?
If you want to add me (my yahoo id is mjasmin_ht ) please send me a little note or a PM, otherwise I might deny your request because I usually only add people I chat with but I make an exception for those who visit my blog :D.
I know this is not a proper post but just 'for your information'.
If you want to add me (my yahoo id is mjasmin_ht ) please send me a little note or a PM, otherwise I might deny your request because I usually only add people I chat with but I make an exception for those who visit my blog :D.
I know this is not a proper post but just 'for your information'.
Tuesday, May 24, 2005
On being booted and Yahlite
This is an update on my "Misadventure in chat land".
I have not found Yahlite but I did find a site where you can download YahElite. I have yet to test it, therefore I am unable to give any feedback -use it at your own risks-. It's supposed to protect you from booters.
I was still unable to stay in my chat room for more than a few minutes but I noticed that I had no problems when I was in other rooms so I decided to change my room's original name and it worked, I was not booted, as simple as that...
Read about my experience using Yahelite to enter Yahoo chat rooms.
I have not found Yahlite but I did find a site where you can download YahElite. I have yet to test it, therefore I am unable to give any feedback -use it at your own risks-. It's supposed to protect you from booters.
I was still unable to stay in my chat room for more than a few minutes but I noticed that I had no problems when I was in other rooms so I decided to change my room's original name and it worked, I was not booted, as simple as that...
Read about my experience using Yahelite to enter Yahoo chat rooms.
Monday, May 23, 2005
Carboni
Agine is really funny, he is a 21-year-old Egyptian, he lives in Italy. I first new him as Carboni. I did not want to tell him my name during our first conversation so he decided to give me an Egyptian name and chose "bata" which -according to him- means "duck". I really don't mind him calling me "bata" -no, I really don't-!
The second time we chatted was different though since in is imperfect English he was asking me to love him (?!). I'll be nice and I won't make any bad comments since Agine is reading this but really guys I don't understand this 'romance on yahoo messenger with a complete stranger' thing. I think of Agine as being a little 'wild', that's why I haven't added him on my buddy list, for now that is...
The second time we chatted was different though since in is imperfect English he was asking me to love him (?!). I'll be nice and I won't make any bad comments since Agine is reading this but really guys I don't understand this 'romance on yahoo messenger with a complete stranger' thing. I think of Agine as being a little 'wild', that's why I haven't added him on my buddy list, for now that is...
Friday, May 20, 2005
Misadventure in chat land
If what I experienced last week what they call being booted well, it's nightmare and I hope you never experience it.
So I open a chat room, a friendly, nice a cozy room where I wanted everyone to feel welcomed.
It was going on really great, people were coming in, many girls and boys too. They were talking, laughing, showing (!?), some were trying to fight boredom while others just wanted to meet girls, things were just great and I was thinking that my room was great... Until, suddenly, it happened. I saw everyone logging off one after the other and then finally I was signed out of the chat room (!). I was unable to go in any other chat room, so I signed out and signed back again on yahoo messenger, and I hurried to open my room again. It seemed to be ok, so I start to send welcome messages for future visitors and it happened again I was kicked out of my own room!!!! I can't go into any other room, and when I create my own I don't last a minute. Dhruv told me I must be on "autoboot" or something and that I should use Yahlite to solve the problem. Well, I'm mad, confused and frustrated.
I don't know if this thing will stop by itself or whether I'll have to do I don't know what to solve it. HELP please!!!
Update: I've not found yahlite but I have installed and use yahelite.
So I open a chat room, a friendly, nice a cozy room where I wanted everyone to feel welcomed.
It was going on really great, people were coming in, many girls and boys too. They were talking, laughing, showing (!?), some were trying to fight boredom while others just wanted to meet girls, things were just great and I was thinking that my room was great... Until, suddenly, it happened. I saw everyone logging off one after the other and then finally I was signed out of the chat room (!). I was unable to go in any other chat room, so I signed out and signed back again on yahoo messenger, and I hurried to open my room again. It seemed to be ok, so I start to send welcome messages for future visitors and it happened again I was kicked out of my own room!!!! I can't go into any other room, and when I create my own I don't last a minute. Dhruv told me I must be on "autoboot" or something and that I should use Yahlite to solve the problem. Well, I'm mad, confused and frustrated.
I don't know if this thing will stop by itself or whether I'll have to do I don't know what to solve it. HELP please!!!
Update: I've not found yahlite but I have installed and use yahelite.
Thursday, May 19, 2005
Dozy
I met Dozy before I deleted my old archive. -I had gone through a phase where I wanted to get rid of my old conversations so I did just that and I had disabled the archive for a while.-. Nevertheless, I remembered Dozy, an electronic engineering student. Though I forgot the ID he was using when we met as well as his age and is precise location, I only know that he is in India, probably in a Northern region.
I saw him on web cam during our first conversation, I noticed that he was a Sikh, he went on to give me links to profiles with his picture with a friend and also his very own web pages where he tells about his family and himself. That's when I discovered that he had lied about his age, it turned out that neither the age on the web page nor the one he told me were correct, he was trying to impress me with and older age while officially his parents had declared a younger age for him for reasons still unclear to me. He gave me his email, told me he did not come online often and wanted me to write him -about what? you wonder, me too-.
Our conversations became interesting when he saw my picture and told me that every Indian girl had more hair than I did and he added, "... In fact I have more hair than you..." since then, Dozy started calling me black beauty when he greets me. Recently, I asked him whether he could show me his hair since he was at home and all alone in the room, he went: "oh, my ....", he was outraged, he was not expecting such a request, well I just wanted to see how long it was. He always tells me that he is not going to remove his turban right now and that he'll do it later because he is too busy to do it right now etc, and of course when that later finally comes he is not online anymore. I like it when people I chat with remember details from our past conversations, it makes me feel that it was worth at least the time and energy I spent typing. The last time I told Dozy I wanted to ask him something his response was: "...not about hairs...", well I don't persecute him with that request, I just think that I will see it eventually one of those days.
Nowadays, every time we chat he calls me black beauty and gives me a virtual flower, dozy is not only nice and polite, he is also boyish and sweet and seems to always be in a good mood.
When I asked him permission to write about him in my blog he said yes right away without any conditions -is that cool or what!-.
I saw him on web cam during our first conversation, I noticed that he was a Sikh, he went on to give me links to profiles with his picture with a friend and also his very own web pages where he tells about his family and himself. That's when I discovered that he had lied about his age, it turned out that neither the age on the web page nor the one he told me were correct, he was trying to impress me with and older age while officially his parents had declared a younger age for him for reasons still unclear to me. He gave me his email, told me he did not come online often and wanted me to write him -about what? you wonder, me too-.
Our conversations became interesting when he saw my picture and told me that every Indian girl had more hair than I did and he added, "... In fact I have more hair than you..." since then, Dozy started calling me black beauty when he greets me. Recently, I asked him whether he could show me his hair since he was at home and all alone in the room, he went: "oh, my ....", he was outraged, he was not expecting such a request, well I just wanted to see how long it was. He always tells me that he is not going to remove his turban right now and that he'll do it later because he is too busy to do it right now etc, and of course when that later finally comes he is not online anymore. I like it when people I chat with remember details from our past conversations, it makes me feel that it was worth at least the time and energy I spent typing. The last time I told Dozy I wanted to ask him something his response was: "...not about hairs...", well I don't persecute him with that request, I just think that I will see it eventually one of those days.
Nowadays, every time we chat he calls me black beauty and gives me a virtual flower, dozy is not only nice and polite, he is also boyish and sweet and seems to always be in a good mood.
When I asked him permission to write about him in my blog he said yes right away without any conditions -is that cool or what!-.
Friday, May 13, 2005
Haider
Haider_deow is a 20 year old Pakistani, he lives in Punjab. I first knew him as Hamza. He started by asking me for my good name, we were in January then and he still doesn't know my good name. I thought he was Indian when he asked me that right in the beginning of the conversation, I was wrong but close. I asked him why Indians and Pakistanis always ask for names, he says it's because they are good people -how nice!-. I saw him on webcam right from the beginning and he looked ok, well from the side he did look ok.
Actually we do not chat too much, but he often sends me these chain messages. Lately when I asked for his permission to write about him on this blog he was really hesitant, but I finally got the yes out of him.
While submitting him the original version of the text you are reading here -so he can give me his "yes",- I discovered a new side of Hamza, he is not as careless and crazy as I thought he was -though he does have a few of those moments,- he is a nice guy and that's probably why we still chat once in a while.
Actually we do not chat too much, but he often sends me these chain messages. Lately when I asked for his permission to write about him on this blog he was really hesitant, but I finally got the yes out of him.
While submitting him the original version of the text you are reading here -so he can give me his "yes",- I discovered a new side of Hamza, he is not as careless and crazy as I thought he was -though he does have a few of those moments,- he is a nice guy and that's probably why we still chat once in a while.
Wednesday, May 11, 2005
Dharmvir
Dharmvir is a 25-year-old Indian living in Punjab, he is an IT professional and also a teacher. He sent me a PM while we were in the "Hot Tub" -the yahoo chat room...-.
He wanted to know my name and thought I was married (!).
He was maybe the third person to ask me for my phone number that day, I wonder why they all wanted to call me? The second day we chatted he was slowly but surely falling in love with me (?), I guessed that the fact that I told him I had no boyfriend kind of encouraged him. And also I must say that I did accept to meet him on the next day in the morning, I guess he considered it a date -did someone say cyber dating?-. Every since that day he is in love with me and is waiting for me to tell him those three words -can you guess which? -.
He gives me a call on my phone in the morning so I can know that he is online, since I always log in invisible mode he does not know whether I'm there or not. Just in case you were wondering -and didn't guess-, I don't share his feelings and I have told him that clearly, but we still chat almost every day, he is nice when he does not spend his time buzzing me. Oh I want to add that I have seen him on webcam and he looks... Well why don't you ask him to let you see him on cam one of those days. Did I ever mention that I don't like when people are continuously buzzing me.
He wanted to know my name and thought I was married (!).
He was maybe the third person to ask me for my phone number that day, I wonder why they all wanted to call me? The second day we chatted he was slowly but surely falling in love with me (?), I guessed that the fact that I told him I had no boyfriend kind of encouraged him. And also I must say that I did accept to meet him on the next day in the morning, I guess he considered it a date -did someone say cyber dating?-. Every since that day he is in love with me and is waiting for me to tell him those three words -can you guess which? -.
He gives me a call on my phone in the morning so I can know that he is online, since I always log in invisible mode he does not know whether I'm there or not. Just in case you were wondering -and didn't guess-, I don't share his feelings and I have told him that clearly, but we still chat almost every day, he is nice when he does not spend his time buzzing me. Oh I want to add that I have seen him on webcam and he looks... Well why don't you ask him to let you see him on cam one of those days. Did I ever mention that I don't like when people are continuously buzzing me.
Monday, May 09, 2005
Ghazal
Ghazal is quite unusual, whether he sees me online or not, he will still send a very loooong "hiiiiiiiiiiii" to me as soon as he comes online. This makes me feel that he always wants to chat with me -oh how nice...-
He lives in Egypt, he is 25, seems to be a hard worker and can be funny at times.
He manages a factory and also teaches social work related classes.
He wanted to see me on cam, since I don't have a webcam, he never did get that chance.
I'm a little fuzzy about when we started to talk but it seems that we get along well enough even though our conversations have not been very extensive lately.
Bottom line is I don't know why we talk but I know we do.
He lives in Egypt, he is 25, seems to be a hard worker and can be funny at times.
He manages a factory and also teaches social work related classes.
He wanted to see me on cam, since I don't have a webcam, he never did get that chance.
I'm a little fuzzy about when we started to talk but it seems that we get along well enough even though our conversations have not been very extensive lately.
Bottom line is I don't know why we talk but I know we do.
Monday, February 14, 2005
Week 3
Week 3, Sunny
Good news, my conversations with Sunny (Mumbai, 25) seem to be going back to the way they were before.
As soon as I appeared online to him he sent me a smiling emoticon, just like he used to before last weeks discussion. It actually felt good, I was glad to see that the dream was not dead after all; or rather now it's reality we're living in and we're accepting it as it is so we can change it for the best as soon as we get the opportunity to do so. -Ok I know I'm sounding a little philosophical-. The fact is we chatted just like we used to.
Week 3, Update on Pablo
Pablo (Valencia,25) sure knows how to make me laugh or simply put a smile on my face, it does help that we have similar "Englishes". It might sound strange that I say it this way but he is becoming more and more human to me as if he is not just a set of characters showing up in a messenger window with occasional emoticons but a true human being with his emotions, feelings, hurts and joys, he can even be goofy. And guess what, he doesn't think I'm boring at all, quite the opposite, he comes online to chat with me when he gets bored at work, makes me feel somewhat proud and happy that I can help him fight boredom.
This week we had one of those very long conversations, what I wanted -without telling him- was to spend the whole day -8 AM to 4PM- chatting with him with only a break at lunch time (I know it's a crazy idea...). We almost did it; we talked so much it was great. I thought that if we could find enough to say to each other during all those hours than we will obviously always have something to say to each other. Just wonderful! I discovered how sensitive he actually is. He thinks I'm intelligent -how can he tell??-. It's always nice having someone say that to you.
I remember telling you how Pablo is surprising and unusual and… so on. Well, I was doing a Google vs Msn Search challenge and I thought I'd use his name and country as a search query because I had already done it with Google and I had found excellent results. Well I discovered that Pablo is also a singer, well what do you know! I thought it was a rock song but he told me it's a rap song rather -hard to believe-. I wonder which other skills he's hiding from me? -By the way, Google had more (all relevant) results than Msn-
Week 3, Ram
I want to tell you about the one contact I have been chatting with from the beginning, from one of the first times I ever went in a chat room. Ram (Andhra Pradesh,27) and I are religiously compatible! Anyway he is nice and appeared to be very curious when we first talked. It's been one year since we've been chatting. There have been times when he felt he needed to talk to new people, times when he stayed invisible to me while he went into chat rooms.- He wasn't aware of the fact that I could follow him in the room using another profile so he wouldn't recognize me.- He is a humble person. We understand each other very well. With him I've learned that you can't expect someone to always be as enthusiastic to talk to you as he was on your best chatting day. There can be days when the person might choose not to talk to you simply because he doesn't feel like it, most likely even if he started chatting in invisible mode so you wouldn't see him, he will chat with you before he leaves because he probably will miss you at some point because your friendship is unique.
One day I was spying on him, I joined him into a chat room using an ID that he does not know -I know that's soo bad-. I wanted to see what could be so interesting in a chat room so he'd rather be in there than chat with me. Well I guess that ID is so attractive -I usually get many IMs when I use it- he IMed me! Can you believe it! I just couldn't tell him that it was me. I don't know whether he realized it since I was using the same fonts. The chat was nice, rather serious, we spoke of social issues. He also chatted with the original me that day, it didn't last long but I had the time to give him a link to a page on Bandita Ramabai, he hadn't heard about her.
Week 3, Pavan
I once met someone from Andhra Pradesh (Pavan, 28) who had a picture in his profile in which he was wearing sunglasses and looked like a typical party lover. Though the image was small, it seemed his lips were dark. So we talked, asked and answered questions, I surprised him with how much I knew about Andhra Pradesh, like the fact that he was living in the capital (Hyderabad) and that he certainly spoke Telugu. He started doubting I was who I claimed to be (just a Haitian girl). He thought I was Indian -can you believe it-. I wouldn't know Hindi if I heard it, I have never even seen Indian curry. But I do chat with people from Andhra Pradesh and one of them even wanted to teach me Telugu. When I asked him whether he smoked, he just couldn't believe it. He actually does smoke once in a while but not even his parents notice that. So he was really impressed with how I could guess that! I guess I scared him -boo-. I have to say that in his picture he looked like a party dude -alcohol, smoke and....-. He's cool anyway but you can feel the European influence -he studied in Germany-.
Week 3, Crazy Paki
I met a crazy Paki who wanted to call me Julia (!)? Why he wanted to call me Julia is beyond me. He also wanted to see my picture so he could tell me he loves me? -Can you believe that guy-. The first time we chatted he told me he was 22, the last time he told me he was 24, he had grown 2 years in just one month! And he wants me to trust him. He' s got this very nice picture in his profile, the guy looks like an actor or singer, as if he scanned the picture from a magazine and he wants me to believe it's him. He even asked me to tell him about his beauty. Well, if I were sure it was him in that picture I wouldn't mind telling him about his beauty, not at all ;-) I guess you really can't trust people you meet in chat rooms. :D
Week 3, young Belge
I talked to a young (19) student from Belgium. He speaks Spanish -impressive-, was very nice. I did feel him becoming more formal when he knew my age as if he suddenly sat straight and put his shoulders back. He was funny and, well..., didn't look so bad for a teenager. But I didn't add him to my list; why you would ask(?). Well, there is the fact that he is quite young compared to me, but also I didn't feel he was that interested in talking to me again. So most likely, we will never ever chat again! Oh well, I usually avoid teenagers though he is not the type I wish to avoid, he is ok.
Week 3, He asked me for money
For the first time ever, someone I've chatted with -and who's on my contact list-, has asked me for money. I had spoken with Hamza (Pakistan,???) a few times before. He's christian and the first time all he was doing was praising the Lord -an inspiring conversation-. On another day I talked to him and he was not praising anymore, he was suffering from Hepatitis C and wondering why God hasn't cured him in spite of his prayers. I tried to comfort him and tell him that God still loves him and ask him to keep praying and even tell him that I would pray for him. On another day we talked and he appeared to be more hopeless. And the worst happened, as he was telling me how the medicine was too expensive for him to afford he asked me whether I could help with the finances. It immediately made me feel uncomfortable. Even though he told me he doesn't like to ask for money in this manner I have a hard time accepting that from him. It's as if I was talking to a whole different person than the one I chatted with the first time, all the joy that he had in the Lord, all the praises, the thanksgiving, all that was gone. He wanted to know whether I was still studying or working and he even asked me how much I earned. I'm in doubt... He asked me whether I could send US $ 100 to $ 200 to him each month for the treatment. I told him I could send only $ 100 only once. It's obviously not enough for the treatment but he said I could send it anyway. I want to believe him and help him if I can nevertheless I believe it is inappropriate to ask me money like that. I'm still thinking about it. I thought about Sunny (Mumbai,25) and how he warned me about people from India (!), Pakistan and Nigeria.
Week 3, Gloria
I talked to Gloria (Philipines,16), the girl is really nice, young and intelligent it's amazing the view she has on life.
Week 3, Avoiding Spanish chats
I'm avoiding my "sólo Español" chatters. Chatting in Spanish ask for so much attention, I usually chat as a secondary activity while I'm doing something else. There is no way I can chat in Spanish while I'm doing something else, even if that something else is chatting with another person. To me chatting in Spanish means using the Google language tools to translate from English to Spanish and vice versa, and also using a Glot translation tool in order to find my words. Needless to say that those chats can get really slow. When I'm a little busy doing other things while chatting I just can't spend the necessary time to find the correct word so I just say what goes through my head, I've left more than one wondering after doing that! So in order to avoid misunderstandings and confusion, I've been avoiding "sólo Español" chatters lately since these are busy days I'm going through.
Good news, my conversations with Sunny (Mumbai, 25) seem to be going back to the way they were before.
As soon as I appeared online to him he sent me a smiling emoticon, just like he used to before last weeks discussion. It actually felt good, I was glad to see that the dream was not dead after all; or rather now it's reality we're living in and we're accepting it as it is so we can change it for the best as soon as we get the opportunity to do so. -Ok I know I'm sounding a little philosophical-. The fact is we chatted just like we used to.
Week 3, Update on Pablo
Pablo (Valencia,25) sure knows how to make me laugh or simply put a smile on my face, it does help that we have similar "Englishes". It might sound strange that I say it this way but he is becoming more and more human to me as if he is not just a set of characters showing up in a messenger window with occasional emoticons but a true human being with his emotions, feelings, hurts and joys, he can even be goofy. And guess what, he doesn't think I'm boring at all, quite the opposite, he comes online to chat with me when he gets bored at work, makes me feel somewhat proud and happy that I can help him fight boredom.
This week we had one of those very long conversations, what I wanted -without telling him- was to spend the whole day -8 AM to 4PM- chatting with him with only a break at lunch time (I know it's a crazy idea...). We almost did it; we talked so much it was great. I thought that if we could find enough to say to each other during all those hours than we will obviously always have something to say to each other. Just wonderful! I discovered how sensitive he actually is. He thinks I'm intelligent -how can he tell??-. It's always nice having someone say that to you.
I remember telling you how Pablo is surprising and unusual and… so on. Well, I was doing a Google vs Msn Search challenge and I thought I'd use his name and country as a search query because I had already done it with Google and I had found excellent results. Well I discovered that Pablo is also a singer, well what do you know! I thought it was a rock song but he told me it's a rap song rather -hard to believe-. I wonder which other skills he's hiding from me? -By the way, Google had more (all relevant) results than Msn-
Week 3, Ram
I want to tell you about the one contact I have been chatting with from the beginning, from one of the first times I ever went in a chat room. Ram (Andhra Pradesh,27) and I are religiously compatible! Anyway he is nice and appeared to be very curious when we first talked. It's been one year since we've been chatting. There have been times when he felt he needed to talk to new people, times when he stayed invisible to me while he went into chat rooms.- He wasn't aware of the fact that I could follow him in the room using another profile so he wouldn't recognize me.- He is a humble person. We understand each other very well. With him I've learned that you can't expect someone to always be as enthusiastic to talk to you as he was on your best chatting day. There can be days when the person might choose not to talk to you simply because he doesn't feel like it, most likely even if he started chatting in invisible mode so you wouldn't see him, he will chat with you before he leaves because he probably will miss you at some point because your friendship is unique.
One day I was spying on him, I joined him into a chat room using an ID that he does not know -I know that's soo bad-. I wanted to see what could be so interesting in a chat room so he'd rather be in there than chat with me. Well I guess that ID is so attractive -I usually get many IMs when I use it- he IMed me! Can you believe it! I just couldn't tell him that it was me. I don't know whether he realized it since I was using the same fonts. The chat was nice, rather serious, we spoke of social issues. He also chatted with the original me that day, it didn't last long but I had the time to give him a link to a page on Bandita Ramabai, he hadn't heard about her.
Week 3, Pavan
I once met someone from Andhra Pradesh (Pavan, 28) who had a picture in his profile in which he was wearing sunglasses and looked like a typical party lover. Though the image was small, it seemed his lips were dark. So we talked, asked and answered questions, I surprised him with how much I knew about Andhra Pradesh, like the fact that he was living in the capital (Hyderabad) and that he certainly spoke Telugu. He started doubting I was who I claimed to be (just a Haitian girl). He thought I was Indian -can you believe it-. I wouldn't know Hindi if I heard it, I have never even seen Indian curry. But I do chat with people from Andhra Pradesh and one of them even wanted to teach me Telugu. When I asked him whether he smoked, he just couldn't believe it. He actually does smoke once in a while but not even his parents notice that. So he was really impressed with how I could guess that! I guess I scared him -boo-. I have to say that in his picture he looked like a party dude -alcohol, smoke and....-. He's cool anyway but you can feel the European influence -he studied in Germany-.
Week 3, Crazy Paki
I met a crazy Paki who wanted to call me Julia (!)? Why he wanted to call me Julia is beyond me. He also wanted to see my picture so he could tell me he loves me? -Can you believe that guy-. The first time we chatted he told me he was 22, the last time he told me he was 24, he had grown 2 years in just one month! And he wants me to trust him. He' s got this very nice picture in his profile, the guy looks like an actor or singer, as if he scanned the picture from a magazine and he wants me to believe it's him. He even asked me to tell him about his beauty. Well, if I were sure it was him in that picture I wouldn't mind telling him about his beauty, not at all ;-) I guess you really can't trust people you meet in chat rooms. :D
Week 3, young Belge
I talked to a young (19) student from Belgium. He speaks Spanish -impressive-, was very nice. I did feel him becoming more formal when he knew my age as if he suddenly sat straight and put his shoulders back. He was funny and, well..., didn't look so bad for a teenager. But I didn't add him to my list; why you would ask(?). Well, there is the fact that he is quite young compared to me, but also I didn't feel he was that interested in talking to me again. So most likely, we will never ever chat again! Oh well, I usually avoid teenagers though he is not the type I wish to avoid, he is ok.
Week 3, He asked me for money
For the first time ever, someone I've chatted with -and who's on my contact list-, has asked me for money. I had spoken with Hamza (Pakistan,???) a few times before. He's christian and the first time all he was doing was praising the Lord -an inspiring conversation-. On another day I talked to him and he was not praising anymore, he was suffering from Hepatitis C and wondering why God hasn't cured him in spite of his prayers. I tried to comfort him and tell him that God still loves him and ask him to keep praying and even tell him that I would pray for him. On another day we talked and he appeared to be more hopeless. And the worst happened, as he was telling me how the medicine was too expensive for him to afford he asked me whether I could help with the finances. It immediately made me feel uncomfortable. Even though he told me he doesn't like to ask for money in this manner I have a hard time accepting that from him. It's as if I was talking to a whole different person than the one I chatted with the first time, all the joy that he had in the Lord, all the praises, the thanksgiving, all that was gone. He wanted to know whether I was still studying or working and he even asked me how much I earned. I'm in doubt... He asked me whether I could send US $ 100 to $ 200 to him each month for the treatment. I told him I could send only $ 100 only once. It's obviously not enough for the treatment but he said I could send it anyway. I want to believe him and help him if I can nevertheless I believe it is inappropriate to ask me money like that. I'm still thinking about it. I thought about Sunny (Mumbai,25) and how he warned me about people from India (!), Pakistan and Nigeria.
Week 3, Gloria
I talked to Gloria (Philipines,16), the girl is really nice, young and intelligent it's amazing the view she has on life.
Week 3, Avoiding Spanish chats
I'm avoiding my "sólo Español" chatters. Chatting in Spanish ask for so much attention, I usually chat as a secondary activity while I'm doing something else. There is no way I can chat in Spanish while I'm doing something else, even if that something else is chatting with another person. To me chatting in Spanish means using the Google language tools to translate from English to Spanish and vice versa, and also using a Glot translation tool in order to find my words. Needless to say that those chats can get really slow. When I'm a little busy doing other things while chatting I just can't spend the necessary time to find the correct word so I just say what goes through my head, I've left more than one wondering after doing that! So in order to avoid misunderstandings and confusion, I've been avoiding "sólo Español" chatters lately since these are busy days I'm going through.
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