Facebook Usernames For PAGES

I just realized that usernames for Facebook pages can already be configured.

Just go to http://www.facebook.com/username and click on the link "Set a Username for your Pages".. Just follow the instructions and you can't go wrong.

Mine's already up and working...

http://www.facebook.com/TheBlueSpeckledDiary

Just a reminder, once you've agreed to one username, you can't change it anymore, so be careful in choosing..  :)

What are JEJEMONS?

No, they are not relatives of Pokemons or Digimons...or Sailormon..

Simply put, they are this group of people that just likes to put too much effort in:

• Typing --> because they just can't figure out whether they want every other letter in small caps or in all caps. example: tHiS iS aN ExAmPlE aLReAdY!!!
• Texting --> they are not satisfied with just the correct spelling. example:  "where do you live" is sent as "wEr d0~ u lIve"
• Laughing --> instead of LOL or Hehehehe, they use Jejejeje.
• usernames--> too many characters and numbers. example:  ~sexhy.^.ghurl~0690
• publicity --> they now have more than 100,000 search results in Google.

Wait... Are you one of them?

Blue Speckled Update! Facebook Social Plugins

As you can see above this very statement, I have just recently added a facebook social plugin to add more opportunities for interaction between this blog (through me.. lol!) and you, the readers....Thanks to this post, there was no need to wake the princess of geekiness in me just to have that button placed in the right....umm...place.

If you liked, kinda liked, really liked, liked a bit, liked a lot, or whatever, any post in The Blue Speckled Diary, just hit that LIKE button seen just below the title of this post.

By the way, you can change the default setting of your facebook social plugins from "sharing everything to everyone at once" to "I'm selfish, I don't want to share it all" by going back to your facebook homepage, clicking on Account > Privacy Settings > Applications & Websites and UN-CHECK "Allow."

Sooo..... How do you like it?!

:)

**photo credit: http://developers.facebook.com/**

The Blue Speckled Diary in ALEXA!

I just updated my site info in Alexa, and they say it will be ready within two days. But so far, their initial analysis of this blog has come up with really good results!

For me, that's pretty ok... not the best I can do with it, but given all the competition, that's really good already. And I also just found out that most of my visitors are older than myself... hmmm.. Doesn't matter, I ove my readers!

Other details from Alexa are:

• Alexa Traffic Rank:   2,744,766 

• Sites Linking In:   67 

• Top 5 High impact Search Queries relevant to the site are:  muriatic acid, miniatures, marvelous marvin, on facebook, and dairy farm

Please do continue supporting this blog, ok? maybe spread a little good word or two?

;)

Cheers!

The Blue Speckled Diary Facebook Fan Page

 Okay, I decided to breathe life to that page, again.


Yep. You read that right, the facebook page for The Blue Speckled Diary is alive and kicking, and you can be an instant fan by clicking at the fan box to your right.

You can even share your thoughts or interact with me via that page, just like any other FB page... You can even suggest topics, or better yet, if you like, you can even be a guest blogger!  :)

What ya think?

Smallest Place I Called Home

When I was starting out my work here in my current company (wouldn't want to mention it, so sue me..lol!), I rented out a room in Labangon (Cebu City). The rate was really small and I was to occupy the whole room by myself. It wasn't at all "bongga" or anything. In fact it was... cramped. Really cramped. I felt like a sardine pushed into a can with 3 others, plus the sauce.

It was about 2m x 3m, I think, I never really wandered how "big" it was. But what I remember was that it fit a double-decker single bed that was just wide enough that your body will fit just ok when you lay supine, plus a small wriggling space. There was also a small cabinet, a small table where I put my TV on - I had to get one so I'd stay sane after work. And a little walking space for one person to be able to move around, change clothes, hang her feet or something, use a stool as a dining table, etc. It was really THAT small.

Aside from the room being small, the landlord was small too. He was an old man, but not grumpy. He was, at his best, sociable. He often asks where my family's at, where I work, how much do I earn, things like that. And he absorbs it like a dry sponge. Later on, he charges me big bucks for that darn TV. Crazy old man.

But it wasn't at all that bad. For as long as I could sleep on a bed, change clothes without being seen by other people, watch tv without the whole town watching with me, and just enjoy solitude after a day's work, I was ok with it. It was really tiny, but it was home for me for about 2 years, I think. And by the way, here are some crappy pictures I took while I was there. You couldn't decipher the size of the room from the pictures, these were just for boredom's sake.

 

  

  

  

  

  

 

Someone Replied! lol!

And from such an unexpected username - Red Apple.

Red Apple said I may have actually "inspired" him to start blogging or something and such a good blog follower he is, he commented on my post.

And guess what he said:

"Send me some samples first.."

Hmm.. Such confidence my dear. Lol!

A funny way to start the morning.  :)



~
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Top 5 Posts in the last 7 days

Just in case you're interested, here are my TOP 5 posts for last week...  :)


No Need to Resign 
Robert Kiyosaki's Cashflow 101, 202 
Wishful Thinking 
Food is a Basic Need 
The Real Britney Voice


If you want to share this list, go ahead, I won't mind.

Comments, suggestions, whatnots, just go to the post a comment link way below this post.

And for anything else, email me or talk to yourself if it serves you right.  :)

{Just kidding.}


~
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Internal Auditing means Using your Brain

This has been a dilemma for so long - making other people understand how literally brain-rattling and mind-boggling Internal Auditing is. At least in our company.

A lot of people have long since underestimated our department, and so far, I have grown tired of trying to prove them wrong - because I have just realized that I need not try. They ARE wrong.

Internal auditing has been a burden and a blessing. A blessing for it flexes our brain tissues, wears out our thinking caps, and even tires our logic and rational thinking, which they cannot get from simply doing the same thing everyday - checking receipts, updating their excel files, saving, printing, typing, updating the system, depositing the cash, coming back, typing again, saving, printing, going home. A blessing for it allows us to exercise judgment and character analysis, profiling people we meet just like in Criminal Minds. A blessing for it develops our grammar, improves our sentence construction, polishes our writing skills - for who else can concisely and precisely convey 5 thoughts in one sentence, with formality and classic elegance yet exudes authority and wisdom.

But at times, our work becomes a burden. Biologically, for it kills more brain cells than normal people do, exposes us more to light and radiation thanks to our nifty laptops. Wears our finger joints and makes us prone to arthritis from too much typing and clicking. Burdensome, for at times we face our enemies, give them smiles despite our earnest desire to stay away. We need a more modulated voice while talking to people just so they won't think they are being apprehended for pulling down the Eiffel tower, a straight face while watching them tell a lie and miserably sucking at it.

It's a heavy thing to carry - our burdens - because with these are the stares and the glares of people who do not understand. Who cannot and may not ever grasp the fact why we exist. Why we do what we do and do them the way we do. Who, for the love of God, cannot even start to comprehend why we look as if we're not doing anything, just sitting around staring at our screens or staring at the ceiling. They may not realize that inside our steady heads are the huge brains working overtime, trying, looking for even the tiniest loopholes that every other executive has failed to see.

We appear to be just chatting around or relaxing, holding that glass of cold water or mug of hot coffee - the only time they say they see us come out of our fortress. They see us talk to others, with a smile and an open joke that we laugh at every now and then. Or walking towards the mess hall or from the buffet area full from the "perks of our position". But they don't understand. These were just the times, the very short ones, that we consider as breaks, the time we interact with the outside world we tend to forget while deciphering, discerning, the facts of cases even investigators can't crack open. These are the links we keep alive, the very same links we get "useless" news from. So useless they help us understand the connections between who we are talking to and who we really need to talk to. What we are looking at against the thing we really need to look into.

But they don't understand. Instead they say our work is so easy that routine tasks you can do while sleeping is nastier. That adding figures is so much more challenging than convincing a manager that he has in fact bent rules and thinking it's fine. That saving files and printing them to be filed up in boxes is more interesting than interviewing five to six people and merging their stories to determine who really was at fault. That being busy typing and marking papers and receipts is more rewarding than figuring out how to help their company, OUR company, save hundred and hundreds of pesos every month.

Use your brain. Even just for a short while. Even for a minute a day. Try to understand - why internal auditing means using your brain.




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Have you seen this?! - My TOP 5.

Saw my stats a while ago and I'm very thankful that a lot have been clicking on to see my posts. So for those who are lost, here's my TOP 5 for the week:

1. Get Instructed - with 14 clicks.
2. I am Free. I can Express - 7 clicks.
3. And 4 clicks each:

• Ondoy
• For You - whoever you are.
• Useless Fact: Mikey Arroyo Lashes on FB

Again, thank you for visiting!



PS: If it's not too much trouble, you can also try these:


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I am Free. I can Express.

I started this blog in February of 2007 with this post just lurking around, discovering it because I was searching the net for added means of income that I can do without explicitly selling things, or starting auctions, or all these. The web was abuzz with SEO, Search Engine Optimization; search engine results came up with "Blogging: Make money at home" or "The Easiest Way to Make Money Online" and things like that. And so I tried it out.

Several months later, I was still excited about it, trying out most, but definitely not all, of online advise regarding online branding and marketing, until such time that I can google my own name without landing on the PRC's CPA Board Exam Results. Someone said I have been successful with my personal branding because I can search for my own name.

It has been, what, more than 2 years and all I have is an erratic number of subscribers! It's a bit frustrating because what I wanted was to write things that are both informative and amusing, and worth reading by thousands and thousands of people. But hell no. I can't see the turn out I was dreaming of from the very beginning.

I wanted to be known as the CPA who blogs and earns as much as she does from "normal" work. I wanted my blog to pull readers to itself because of its content, its insight, its writing style, or even how amusing and freakishly easy I make blogging to appear.

But. Maybe all I can do is look at my blog stats, sigh, and pray to God that He makes it survive for the next years.

Or say crap. And pray I don't get tired.



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8 Things to Do When YOU are BORED.

When you're feeling blue...

All you have to do is read my blog! Or not. Nonetheless, if you're bored and have nothing else to do and you happen to stumble upon The Blue Speckled Diary and into this very post, I suggest you go ahead and read the 8 THINGS TO DO WHEN YOU'RE BORED.

1. Eat Coffee.
- Yes my beloved readers, eat - not drink - eat coffee. Get a teaspoonful of coffee and slowly put several granules into your mouth and eat it as if it was yummy strawberry ice cream. Hmmm.

2. Measure the actual perimeter of your lot (or the lot where your apartment or condo is) by the span between the tip of your thumb to the tip of the pinkie finger with your hand spread widely. Something like that on the image to the right. We call that "dangkal" in Filipino.
- This is crucial. If you don't get it right, you have to do it all over again. Definitely beats boredom. lol.

3. Fill your toilet bowl with water.
- Without accidentally flushing all of it down. Cool.

4. Separate the ingredients of a 3-in-1 instant coffee mix.
- Separate all the granules among the three ingredients - coffee, creamer and sugar. Make sure they're easily identifiable!

5. Pluck your Eyelashes.
- Slowly, one by one. Are you still bored?

6. Pluck and then count your nosehairs.
- Eeew. But you won't get bored. Instead, you'll feel pain all throughout this activity!

7. Lock yourself inside your room an then shout "Help!"
- Of course, how do you expect yourself to get out? :)

8. Play hide and seek with yourself. If you can't find each other, send an SMS.
- Darn. You sure you really want to be bored at all?


On a side note:
Amidst your boredom, don't forget to Bookmark or Share this to your friends and family, or subscribe to The Blue Speckled Diary by Email for free updates!

Scheduling to Move to the New House

We're now starting to pack our things and find other lose ends to knot so we can transfer to our new house worry-free.

So far, what we've finished are most of the books and other stuff from the living room, and then maybe we'll go to the bedrooms and organize everything in nifty boxes and label them of course so we won't freeze hell over just to go looking for a piece of document. Right?

I'm getting kinda hungry now, it's about noon time here in the Philippines, with much a buzz about the September 2008 Bar Exam Results just going public. Whew! Pretty stressful for some, and glorious for others.

By the way, have to go now, need to finish reviewing a report. And updating my twitter.


On a side note:
Don't forget to Bookmark or Share this to your friends and family, or subscribe to The Blue Speckled Diary by Email for free updates!

Searching for the Stinky Fish

I'm currently installing TweetDeck on my laptop while typing this because I wanted to be updated with the tweets as often as possible. The main reason?

Because I want to take a peek at the links posted by the tweeple (Twitter people). Actually, I've already spent about half an hour in the net today, visiting ODesk pages, trying to look for good money-making opportunities from other web-savvy people like me. Not just articles and paid-to-click gigs, but the real bucks.

Aside from looking busy staring at my screen and pounding on my keyboard, I also look quite like a ninja right now because I have my coat tied around my head just to securely cover my nose. Our God-forsaken office is just too... smelly. The vent, I think, is connected to the exhaust of our darling little cafeteria which now is cooking, or frying, fish for tonight's dinner (they serve dinner for the night shift guys), and fish, because they're observing Lent.

Darn. Really smells fishy.

In Support of Earth Hour

We (meaning I and my fiance) are so supporting Earth hour... We might be doing the following for the whole one-hour event:

1. turn off all lights around the house
2. turn off appliances and unplug everything
3. instead of using candles, which can emit smoke and additional heat, maybe we'll using tiny teeny flashlights or torches
4. we'll lock all doors around the house, except for the main door, to comfort ourselves from the thought of possible bad elements who might decide to take advantage of Earth Hour
5. go out to the lawn and look around under the moonlight
6. talk about amusing things and whatnots until we forget that one hour has passed
7. even if Earth Hour ends, we'll do our best to keep in mind the objectives and mission of Earth Hour and try to embody it everyday - not just for an hour

Hopefully, all of us decide to participate. I know our Office is participating, everything will be turned off, maybe except for the generators...  :)

Don't forget to visit their site for more info: http://www.earthhour.org/

Let's be conscious, let's turn off the lights! Ready?

Are You in Heat?

You read that right. I asked the question, "Are you in Heat?" No need to flag me or anything, 'coz that's not the "in heat" I was referring to.

This phrase had it's time in the airwaves of Philippines at one time, I think it was a softdrink commercial, just correct me if I'm wrong, I also can't find a video of it stashed anywhere, but it basically runs into something like a guy enters an elevator, a sexy girl already in it. And then, masculine impulse kicks in and he wanted to make an impression, so he bluntly asks, "Are you in heat?" instead of asking something like "Are you feeling hot?" or Are you hot enough to want what I'm holding?" or something to that effect. The idea was fascinating, funny, and leaves a long-lasting impression that you simply can't ignore ever watching it once in your life.

Anyway, got to go... They already turned off the airconditioning, which means, it's log off time. Cheers!

Oh, if anybody knows where to dig up that commercial video, can you leave me the link? Thanks!

Can't Upload Pictures to Blogger and Yahoo! Mail

I thought it was just my computer saying "I'm sick", but apparently, it has been a problem amongst bloggers since last year.

I read in another blog that there has been a resolution already... Well, I really don't think so.

I hope someone knowledgeable can read this post because today, just to upload 3 pictures, I had to try all three known browsers. Only Internet Explorer succeeded in uploading the pictures, but still took too much time than it used to. What exactly is wrong? Is it something about Blogger or is it caused by me and my endless fiddling with my browsers?

Next, I have tried several times to attach images to my yahoo mail. They're not at all harmful because they're just images of scanned copies of airline tickets - but heck, it just can't be attached. So I stopped, and started hating yahoo mail quite a bit. If it just wasn't because of the chat thing, I'd change email providers.

Turquoise Bangle - Almost Bella-like

I was so excited this morning when a small package arrived courtesy of our HR... I was just about to wrap up my morning prayer when our HR person suddenly knocked on the door and handed the package over.

What greeted me when I opened it was the ever-fascinating and stress-relieving bubble wrap, the next layer of protection was a lavender pouch, and then a ziploc-like plastic pouch which contained the item.

My joy inched a notch higher when I saw the turquoise and silver bangle I stumbled upon on Beadazzling.co.uk when I was poring through the internet looking for a bangle or bracelet that looked like the one that Bella wore in the movie Twilight.

Dora the Explorer? Growing up?

Apparently, not just real humans grow up, even cartoon characters!

The reaction to this news by viewers, fans, and parents all over the world have been cut into two - one group says it's just about time a "role model" should be able to properly and appropriately guide the kids on the proper way to dress, interact with other tweens, and maybe to prepare for the more grown-up world, aside from Barbie, who just celebrated her 50th Birthday and seems to have inculcated a wrong notion of beauty for kids all over the world. Here's a silhouette of how this tween Dora might look like. (photo credits: http://abcnews.com)

The other group on the other hand, is not quite convinced that Dora should be made-over into a whole new tween character. They think she should stay as a child and be an icon to future generations.

Are you a fan of Dora the Explorer? Or do you know someone who is? What do you think about Dora growing up? Start the discussion by leaving your comments or forwarding this to your friends and family who would care.

We Have a New Home!

Well, it's not actually a cozy homey home yet, but it will be.

We just received word the other day that our application for our house loan has just been approved. So this just means that at the age of 25, I already have my own house! Thank God! Such a blessing, don't you think? We're not planning on getting worried about where we'll get the funds for the finishing touches and the new appliances or whatnots, because I know - we both know - that everything will fall into place.

Aside from this good news, we now have some sort of a dilemma. The place where our new home is located is such a long mile away from where my fiance and I both work. Needless to say, we definitely need a ride of our own, but we don't have bundles of cash stashed around somewhere. Well, maybe not a brand new car, but something functional and presentable. I personally think it should have a sound system of some kind, but we don't think we need a whole entertainment package complete with DVDs and all. A GPS might be handy 'coz I'm not very good with directions, but it's not really a necessity.

Oh well, some options are to:

1. Bluntly ask from our sponsors.
2. Look for previously owned vehicles in Auto Shops.
3. Hunt bargain buys in the online markets/sites.

Whatever we choose to do, we just believe everything will go by smoothly - if it's The Will.