There’s YouTube and There’s FreeTube

People who know me in real life know that I have not touched the newspaper or watched TV since three or four years ago because I have been so busy with work, taking care of my monkeys, blogging and a thousand and one other commitments. Heck, I don’t even have time to brush my hair!

Anyway, last night, my friend told me about FreeTube. I don’t know how long this site has been live but it did say 2007 so it should be fairly new.

My friend said that since I spend SO much time in front of the computer, I’m only wasting my bandwidth if I do not stream some videos. True also, hor? Well, I used to watch stuff on YouTube but my internet connection is not that great despite calling itself Broadband. I can’t watch a YouTube video without continuous buffering so what I did was to download the video onto my computer and then watch it from my own player.

Since my internet connection is the same crap, I do not expect a smooth experience with FreeTube and neither do I know if the TV shows are downloadable. However, if the show is interesting enough, I am willing to open up a browser and just let the show run in the background while I work in another browser window in the foreground.

Last night I tried the site out though I will not tell which station I selected *ahem* but woohoo I’m gonna be watching “TV” again!

Novelty Mailboxes & Curbside Decor

Some of you may know that my sister bought a house in Tennessee. She told me that as she starts to decorate her home, her colleagues and in-laws are contributing items to help her out.

Last weekend, she told me that coincidentally, she received two residential mailboxes. She said that both were both from Mailboxixchange (pronounced Mailbox Exchange), who is a distributor of quality mailboxes for residential and commercial use. She told me that Mailboxixchange has more than 1500 residential and commercial mailboxes and curbside decor products and it is not difficult to find something that catches the eye.

My sister said that in her neighborhood and she believes all across America, it is a novelty to have personalized decorative mailboxes ether mounted on the wall or posted on the curbside.

Besides mailboxes, Mailboxixchange also has a wide range of curbside decorations and address and number plaques. She told me to take a look because these are the things that make a home stand out from its neighbors.

Historic Hendersonville Real Estate

My sister had the chance to visit a beautiful city called Asheville in North Carolina recently on a work trip. She said that her boss gave them a day off where they could do their own sight-seeing. A local tour guide told her and her colleagues about a historic town called Hendersonville about thirty minutes from Asheville. My sister was determined to pack as much sight-seeing into the day as possible, of course, so the group of girls went to Hendersonville.

She told me that Hendersonville real estate is really breathtaking, unlike the property that she has been used to in Nashville, Tennessee. She told me that if she has the money, she would definitely move to Hendersonville to retire!

According to the local tour guide, not many people know that Asheville also has many things to offer, like fine dining, arts and crafts and a beautiful culture. Besides, people here, unlike people in a bustling city, are warm and welcoming!

Mission for Malaysia’s 50th Merdeka

I received an email from a Friend and fellow blogger about a project to collect a million memories in conjunction with Malaysia’s 50th independence.

The project was initiated by a Malaysian, Goh Thuan Yi, and there is a website for people to post their contribution or read the articles contributed.

The idea is novel. However, I would like to point out that the website www.MemoirsofMalaysia.com looks as if it was shabbily put up. The pages did not display well in both Internet Explorer OR Firefox and there were plenty of “Warning: Invalid argument supplied” peppered all over the site.

Errrr.. come on, the site is already live!

Anyway, I feel that all Malaysians, whether in Malaysia or overseas, should contribute to help make this project a success. Can a million messages be collected in time for Merdeka? It all depends on us, actually.

Well, I’m going to recollect my memories now!

Click HERE to submit your message or email memoirsofmalaysia@gmail.com

Military Benefits & More

Some of you may know that my dad was in the army. Since my sister migrated to the US, she has been telling me that people get a whole lot more benefits as a citizen on the whole. She said that if our dad was in the army in the US, he and his family would receive a lot of benefits too.

My sister said that for example, military personnel will be eligible for GI Bill Benefits, which even veterans qualify for but of course, active duty servicemen can utilize this to study for a Bachelor’s Degree.

Being in the military is a lot of fun, only when there is no war, though! Our whole family misses those days. We, and other children of servicemen, were like siblings, doing everything together.

Reading the Military Forums of VAJoe.com brought back many fond memories. I wonder if there is a local military community website. I guess not. This forum is free to join and you will receive a FREE VAJoe t-shirt called the J-shirt after only twelve forum posts! But I digress ….

I checked out VaJoe.com on my sister’s recommendation. This website is the most comprehensive resource site that I ever come across on GI Bill information and education assistance, listing a whole range of programs that are available to members of all military and service bodies.

It is hoped that with such information easily available on the internet, the other half of eligible servicemen will utilize their GI Bill benefits. The JoeNotes is a great column as facts on educational programs are presented in an easy to read and understand, short yet precise manner.

If you think that VAJoe is all seriousness, think again. They also have military jokes and comedy contests where members can submit their military jokes and all things funny to stand a chance to win the exclusive J-shirt.

VaJoe.com is the site to check out even if you are remotely interested in anything military.

Blogger’s New Auto Save Feature

I logged into my Blogger account this morning and had a pleasant surprise. Blogger now automatically saves our drafts as we type them out, just like Gmail! Yay!

As you know, I blog A LOT daily and I do not blog from my blogs but rather from Gmail! Can you believe it? I use Gmail because of its auto save feature and there were many times it saved me from retyping, especially when the power went off suddenly or the browser crashed. Even if I had to retype, it was only for a sentence or two.

And when I write sponsored posts, time is of the essence!

Now, with Blogger’s auto save (what took them so long, they are from the same company now!), I can blog directly from Blogger itself without logging in to Gmail which by the way shares the same log in ID and password, hence I have to make sure that I am logged into the SAME account. The workaround is to have one Gmail account logged in from Firefox, the other from Internet Explorer. It works!

For further information, read How Blogger Autosaves Your Posts.

Personalized Paris Hilton Backgammon Board

After my two blog posts on backgammon yesterday, a reader told me that this is the company that is planning to make a personalized Paris Hilton backgammon board for Paris Hilton in the event that she is unfortunately made to serve jail time.

I am sure by now the world knows that Paris Hilton has been sentenced to 45 days in jail for violating her probation. We all sympathize with her and I think BackgammonMasters is very clever to come up with this idea so that Paris Hilton can spend her time more pleasantly in jail, if possible, by playing backgammon on her own board!

Perhaps after she gets to play backgammon, she would be interested to participate in the Annual Monte Carlo Backgammon world championship tournament. Who knows?

According to my reader, this is just a back up plan, though. Hopefully, Paris Hilton will not need to serve jail term. After all, it is a very harsh sentence for her minor violation.

Should Paris be let off the hook, BackgammonMasters, the leading provider of backgammon online which has the most players in its games network, will auction off this personalized Paris Hilton in the name of charity. I think this is an excellent idea! But I still hope that Paris need not serve jail time!

Random Thoughts Off My Mind