Life Outside PLT1

The Letter B: Blogs

I’ve been reading up on blogging lately. Reading tips, hints, do’s and don’ts, and of course, blogs themselves.I came across this: guaranteed it’s very self explanitory, but more importantly I like the style and the way this was put together.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=NN2I1pWXjXI

There is a huge variety in the way blogs are put together and written. Wordpress and blogger are probably the biggest out there, allowing people who either can’t or are just too lazy *cough* to write their own websites to blog. The term blog comes from Web Log, just got shortened as everything does on the internet.

Problogger.net is one of the biggest blog websites out there, generally run by one guy. He tends to write frequently, long articles, sometimes a little drowsey, but overall, not a bad blog site.

But I have also discovered you don’t need to write your blog like you would a newspaper. 100 words is a New Zealand blog where the guy aims to write no more than 100 words per article. This is actually a skill to do. You need to be able to say everything within a limit (remember those essays you had to write at college!) But nevertheless, not bad to have a browse through.

Kiwiology is another site I fell upon. Basically it is a list of New Zealand blogs. 411 blogs so far. Worth a look if you’ve got some time.One of the most popular topics of blogging that people want to know about is: How do I generate traffic to my site? It’s simple, you write about a topic that you are interested in. Blogging is just another form of writing. Your own voice often comes out when you blog, write with what feels natural. Don’t write how/about what you think other people want to hear. You’ll lose interest if your true interest is world domination, but all you write about is the south pole because thats what you think you should write about. You’ll also find that those going to your site won’t want to read more because it sounds so fake.

A popular tip for blogging, especially if starting out is to write lists. “Top 10 PLT1 Crew” (though thats another post), “101 things not to do in DOTA” etc.

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Cake! (The letter [edit D])

I tell you what dose this post have to do with cake? Hmm… I am trying to tell you something by asking a question. Well anyway, this post has nothing to do with cake. Not one thing! But this is all relative, to what I don’t know. I do suspect that is some such nonsense as relative to relative or something else of mind bending proportions. I also tell you, if you want to eat more, fine! Just do more exercise!!More exercise relative to what you say? Well relative to the amount you have been doing; if that is none then get back to me and we can discuss how to increase your exercise relatively compared to your absence of exercise.

The purpose of this nonsense BORK! BORK! BORK!? I suspect is has something to do with salvaging what little of my sanity remains after reading too much Schopenhauer and Nietzsche in a short time frame. Not good for the mind that is! Makes elephants seem like lollipops made from moon dust or some such.

Pictures? No no no no, not this post. Not unless your internal circuitry needs Sorbitan monostearate.

The post of my Bottom (The Letter B)

Bottom is a British Sitcom that ran from 1991 to 1995 on BBC.  It featured Rik Mayall and Adrian Edmonson as the main characters: Richard Richard and Edward Elizabeth Hilter, who progress through thier slovenly little lives with a mixture of cartoon violence, drunkness and desperate attempts to score with the Laydeez.

The show was inspired by Mayall and Edmonson starring in a production of Samuel Beckett’s play “Waiting for Godot” an absurdist peice about the futility of life.  Initially the pair had wanted to call the show “Your Bottom”, which would lead people to say “I saw your bottom on the telly last night”.

Given the theatrical inspiration for the show, it was no wonder that they would go on to do it on stage, even groser than before.  This lead to five stage shows, including the very excellent “weapons grade Y-fronts” tour.  They also produced a movie, Guest house paradiso, though the characters names were changes to Richard Twat (pron. Thwaite) and Eddie Elizabeth Ndingobamba.

And without further ado here is my bottom:

The post of the Vampire Squid (letter V)

The Vampire Squid, scientific name Vampyroteuthis infernalis (literially vampire squid from hell), is a deep sea cephalopod that is found in the aphotic (dark) zones of temperate and tropical oceans throughout the world. Being of small size, roughly 30cm, and the fact that this animal resides at quite high pressures, means that it is unlikely to vant to zuck your blud. The animal doesn’t appear to suck the blood of its normal prey of jellyfish and shrimp, so it appears the name was just the whim of its discoverer German teuthologist Carl Chun. The Vampire Squid isn’t even a top predator of its habitat, its remarkable ability to blend in with the surroundings of the dark deep and primarily to avoid predators. Strangely these include deep diving whales, as the remains of Vampire Squid have been found in the bellies of these beasts.

But who could not be slightly worried by something like this finding you in a dark alley.

The post of the Chocolate (the letter C)

Chocolate is one of the most recogniseable flavours in the world. It originates from the seeds of the cacao tree, where the Mesoamerican civilization used it in a variety of sauces and beverages. These flavours were saved for only the highest of noblemen.

Today, chocolate comes in the hidden form of confectionaries, such as chocolate bars, ice cream, candy, cookies, moouse and other yummy foods. While the chocolate itself is not bad for you, the sugar that incases it is. Due to the fact that people eat excessive amounts of this sugar ladened food, and then don’t burn off the sugar, which turns into glucose that has nothing else to do but live in the fat cells of your body, chocolate has been branded as bad and evil for people on a diet and all women. If you’re a fatty, eating chocolate, people think, no wonder your fat… back to topic..

Chocolate comes in three main varieties, dark, milk and white. The darker the chocolate, the more cocoa it has in it. Cocoa has a bitter taste, which is why many people do not like the 70%+ cocoa dark chocolates. In return, milk chocolate contains about 50% cocoa and white chocolate contains 30-40%.

Because of the chemicals in the brain triggered when chocolate is absorbed into the system, it is largely recgonised to help with cheering up, 3pm slump, pre-menastral women and studying. The chemicals released are serotonin, the pleasure chemical, the same chemical released when falling in love and passionate kissing, and dopamine, a happy chemical.

Basically, I like chocolate. I have sitting on my desk an empty cookie packet, empty milk chocolate dairyfood, empty chocolate bar wrapper and a empty bos of eclipse mints.

And remember, we (most of us) live in NZ, we make the best chocolate in the world!

The post of the Ostrich (the letter O)

The ostrich is a flightless bird. It can run really really fast, up to 65km/h. They are native to Africa.

The adult male ostrich weighs in the range of 90-130kg. As a chick, the male is a similar colour to the female ostrich, being greyish-brown and white, but at sexual maturity of 1.8 to 2.7m tall, the male ostrich blooms in colour of black, with some white on the wings and the tail.

The ostrich has two toes. One is significantly bigger than the other and resembles a hoof. The legs of an ostrich are long and lean, with few feathers. This is what helps the ostrich to run at such great speeds.

Ostriches are nomatic animals and live in herds of 5-50. In the wild they travel together with animals such as the zebra and antelopes. They will eat almost anything, but chose to graze on seed and other plant matter. Also because they lack teeth, ostriches will swallow small stones and pebbles to grind up the food within their stomach. A typical adult has up to 1kg of pebbles in their tummy at any one time.

Like many animal spieces, the male adults fight for their hens (female ostriches). They will fight for 2-5 hens at a time. The winner will get to mate with all the hens that he has won the right for, but forms only a pair bond with the dominant female. The eggs of an ostrich weigh 1.3 kg and will be layed along with 15-60 other eggs. Once the eggs hatch it is the males tendency to attend to the chicks.

Ostriches are farmed mainly for leather, with meat being a secondary goodness.

The point of this?