The False Blog

I was woken up by the thunder at one last night! That’s so rare to me because I sleep soundly most of the time. And it was very hot too. My dad doesn’t let us turn on the air-con, and my mum was angry about this. She said she couldn’t sleep because it was too hot.

The weather changed so fast. An hour before, just before I slept, the weather was fine. But later it was raining very heavily, with thunders and lightnings, that could wake me up. It’s a wonderful world.

Most of us here use MSN Messenger. Most of us use the MSN Messenger program from Microsoft, not knowing we have alternatives.

Let me tell my story first. I used to use that program too, (before I switched of course) and after like 10 months of not using it, I’d forgotten how many ads it has in the contact list. Last month I had to go to the PC to work, so I used that MSN Messenger. OMG, look at the ads.

We have:

• a banner ad at the bottom of the contact list
• the MSN search box (that’s advertising the search service, if you’re wondering)
• numerous “useful” tabs at the side of the contact list that are obviously ads, and they can’t be disabled
• a little message that sometimes appears below conversation windows
• links to Zone.com (a Microsoft website) when you’re playing the games
• I guess there are many more, but I don’t want to list any longer.

So why do we still use it? No reason, it’s just that it’s the official client, and it’s pre-installed in Windows. I bet most people don’t know there are many other choices.

Next, we’ve come to the choices, and this is the point of this post: boycott the official MSN Messenger client. Because we need something better.

1. Trillian – Honestly this is the only client I’ve used. It doesn’t only handle MSN, it does Yahoo, Gtalk, AIM, ICQ, Jabber, and IRC too! There are more, but these are all that I care about. Trillian handles all at the same time, meaning you can remove all other clients and use only this. It has other features like customising its appearence.
2. Gaim – The features are similar to those of Trillian. But it’s open source. Some geeeks seem very enthusiastic about it.
3. Miranda – Again, the geeks are quite keen on this one too. It’s open source and multi-protocal, and it’s “smaller, faster, easier” according to the website.
4. Adium – Sorry, it’s Mac only. But I won’t forgive myself if I don’t mention it. (This is the one I’m using.)

Now, of course there are more, but these are the popular ones, and three options is enough for you to make your own wise decision. BTW I bet all of them don’t have ads. Please consider them. You won’t look back.

At the end, I still have to say it – use Gtalk please. I understand it’s not an easy change, but it’s not that impossible, is it?

In the last post, I didn’t say almost the whole house – that’s my mum and sister and I – are sick. Yeah, that’s 3/4, or three quarters of the people in the house. I mentioned my problems. My sister was sick first, in fact. She has cough. She infected me. My mum has a cold. Not sure if my sister infected her.

I have been sick for a few days already. A cold, then sore throat, cough, slight fever, headade. It’s a flu, overall. I went to see the doctor today. Some medicines, of course. And the doctor looked at my eye (my mum told him to), my eye is very red. So he gave me eye drops. And then you might remember I said that I would ask a doctor about my ears. But I didn’t. I haven’t told my mum about this problem, so I didn’t want to tell when I was seeing the doctor. Stupid me, isn’t it?

I get pain in my ears much often than before now. You should remember my old post at the MSN Spaces here. I quote myself here:

My ears don’t feel quite well today. Yesterday night I listened to music for hours by earphones. I know I was wrong. But it was late at night (2 AM) and I couldn’t turn on the speakers.

This morning during the assembly, Ms Pig spoke so loudly. No one was as loud as her. I stood right under the speaker, so I heard all the sounds. It was awful. I felt pain in my right ear (the speaker was at my right). I can feel it even now. But maybe it’s just my imagination.

This two things add up, and I’m going to be deaf someday. Really.

The latest news is, not only is my right ear feeling painful, but also my left ear. Though usually it’s still the right ear.

As the problem is so serious, I did a little research a few days ago. I found this website contains information about a disease "ruptured eardrum".

Let’s look at the symtoms from the website:

• Sharp, sudden ear pain or discomfort
• Clear, pus-filled or bloody drainage from your ear
• Sudden decrease in ear pain followed by drainage from that ear
• Hearing loss
• Ringing in your ear (tinnitus)

Number 1, I have that. Two and three, I don’t think so; nothing went out from my ears. Number 4 is not easy to notice if it’s a small loss. Number 5, I’m not sure what the ringing is like, but generally I don’t hear anything funny.

Next, we study the causes.

• Middle ear infection (otitis media)
• Airplane ear (barotrauma)
• Injury to your ear (acoustic trauma)
• Foreign objects in your ear
• Loud, sudden noise

Now I’m not sure what middle ear infection is. The secord one, airplane ear. I’ve never been on a plane. Third, this one is quite likely. Fourth, I think this one is quite similar to the third one, so yeah, this is llikely too. Number 5 – this is what I’m thinking – loud, sudden noise when I turned the volume of the computer too high accidentally. Not to mention Ms Pig, whose noise was continuous, which causes more harm, I imagine.

Next page, risk factors.

• Fluid buildup from middle ear infection
• Cleaning your ear with small objects to clear away earwax buildup or blockage
• Excessive scratching of your ear due to itchy ears

Actually I don’t understand what "risk factor" is. But look at point 2, I do that sometimes.

Then, when to seek medical advice?

Seek medical care if you have pain or swelling in your ear or drainage from your ear. Discharge of blood or pus may be a sign that your eardrum has ruptured. See your doctor immediately if you develop fever or headache, or if the pain in your ear becomes severe.

You know, on Thursday, I felt a little pain in my head. Next time, when I go to the doctor because of something else, I will probably ask him to check my ears too. Maybe there’s a hole in my eardrum. 

But then on another page it says "A ruptured eardrum usually isn’t serious and often heals on its own without complications." Indeed? This is all I can hope for now. Except there’s really nothing wrong with my ears.

I have realised that my writing is getting worse. Everything I write, like blogs, compositions at school, are bad. I’ll try to list out my problems.

1. The style is too dull. It’s always the same, which makes it very boring.
2. I have no vocabulary. I’m always using easy words, easy phrases.
3. The sentence structures are usually the same.
4. I sometimes find it hard to use words to express myself. (Like I couldn’t find words for the last point.)
5. The ideas are boring too. I don’t elaborate points.

So there are so many problems! Not small ones, they’re big! You know, I wanna ask, is there any way I can improve?

I guess I didn’t checck IT-School emails last night? So many students wrote letters talking about that parent who wrote to the Chief Executive about uniforms. Well, indeed, that parent used some inaccurate language. I don’t know what happened and I’ll never know. So I’m not going to judge. But what those students (except those F1 or 2 students) say sounds quite right to me.

Indeed, I’m not one who likes to follow school rules. But this parent is making too big a fuss. Write to the CE? You sure he will read? Even Apple Daily haven’t written about this matter. And I do think those shoes are boots. That Chinese style coat isn’t appropriate for school either. Ms Mok was rude … hmm, I’m not so surprised. But he said after the teachers asked his daughter a lot of questions, she ran after her and shouted to her, then laughed and went away. That sounds so unlikely. So inhuman. I don’t quite believe this.

Too big a fuss. But the principal can handle this, says Mr Fong.

OMG. Someone searched for "ut result" and you know what, my post here is the very very first result. I’m shocked, honestly. Number one result, you know. But I sort of feel dangerous. What if it’s Anthony who searched? Hmm, but that seems unlikely. Anyway, let’s celebrate the number one spot. Yeah! I got searched by my favourite search engine! Number one!

As everyone knows, today is April Fool’s Day. I got fooled when I was wandering in the internet. It was iLounge. I didn’t remember the date when I was reading that article. I was shocked and disappointed when I read that. So foolish of me! lol

Another good joke is from Google. Click around. It’s so funny. It’s the best I’ve seen. Of course by this time I didn’t fall for the joke. And they have linked older jokes. Those are funny too.

She came back yesterday. Be prepared, some shocking things to be told.

She didn’t have shower for the two days she went to camp. After what she did in daytime like running around, playing outdoor games, how could she not take showers? Disgusting. She said another girl led this and all other silly girls followed suit.

Second, she slept for one hour in the first night. She said she couldn’t sleep. So I guess they were playing an talking in the night. How could they do this? After playing for hours one should be very tired. Even though one is not used to the bed, one can eventually sleep. At 6 am she phoned home. Woke all of us. Duh.

The other time she phoned home was when we were having dinner in the first night. She phoned but my mum and her talked for just a minute because she had to go for some other games. Why phone if you can talk just for one minute? Duh again.