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So I’ve been tagged by Derek in a meme called six words memoir. Gosh, it seemed so long ago since I was tagged in a meme, or any “community project” for that matter, that clearly put my presence (or the lack thereof) on the web in perspective. Hence, I’ve to thank Derek for tagging me and have spent a considerable amount of time thinking about this meme.

I’m not the creative type who can spout quotable quotes like some poets or famous speakers can in a jiffy. I was tempted to be clichéd and go with famous advertising slogans like Just Do It or Impossible Is Nothing, or something to that effect, for my six words memoir.

To use those would have been a great injustice and disrespect towards Derek. I searched deep inside my heart and finally came up with a six word sentence that closely mirrored my life – past, present and future.

Seize the moment, make everyday count!This sentence stamp from the insecurities and guilt that I felt, of being trapped in a situation that disable me to give my best in everything I do. For instance, I feel guilty for the fact that I can’t give my full attention to my kids as I’ve to work on a full-time job and also blog part-time as a hobby. I am damn afraid that I would miss their growing up years, and to be a guiding beacon in their lives.

Hence, I remind myself everyday that life is short, make everyday count. Don’t keep living in the past or get too paranoid about the future, enjoy the present and make every moment count!

Now it is your turn, here are the rules:

• Write your own six word memoir.

• Post it on your blog and include a visual illustration if you want.

• Link to the person who tagged you in your post.

• Tag at least five more blogs.

• Leave a comment on the tagged blogs with an invitation to play.

I realized many bloggers had put off doing meme, nevertheless, the five friends that I am going to tag are:

Mark at MeAndMyDrum
Simon at YeePage dot com
Pearl at Fresh Perspective
Tay at Super Blogging Tips
Lori at Blogging Cents

After getting unplugged and going “cold turkey” on Shutdown Day, I power up my laptop with child-like glee and logged myself into the World Wide Web hoping to find out how much I’ve missed and catch up on lost time.

After surfing the net and the browsing my feed reader for a while, I concluded that I haven’t really miss out as much as I’ve expected in the last couple of days. A couple of interesting events that happened on 3rd May caught my attention though, besides being Shutdown Day, it was also Free Comic Book Day and World Press Freedom Day.

Free Comic Book Day is a single day when participating comic book shops across North America and around the world give away comic books absolutely free* to anyone who comes into their stores.

A pity I didn’t know this piece of information until today, otherwise I would have walk into any comic shop and helped myself to some free copies! On the other hand, I wondered just how many local comic shops actually observed and celebrated Free Comic Book day, kudos to those which did in the present unfavorable economic outlook.

As for World Press Freedom Day, what can I say except that Singapore was ranked 141 out of 169 countries measured throughout the world in the Worldwide Press Freedom index 2007 report which was compiled and published by Reporters Without Borders.

Singapore may have ranked highly in terms of economic performances, world class infrastructures and the like among first world countries, but when it comes to press freedom, we were down there among the third world countries. Just imagine, in the 2007 report, we just edge slightly ahead of Afghanistan! I rest my case.

What an interesting day 3rd May had turned out to be while I was going “cold turkey” from my tech gadgets.

Not that anyone would actually bother to know what I did (or did not do) on Shutdown Day, but I’ve survived this self enforcedly “no computer, no Internet and no gaming” day and came out unscathed to bring you the story. How well (or badly) did you survive Shutdown day?

This post was inspired and created after reading and commenting on Michael Kwan’s blog post. In it, he talked about one of the ill trappings of modern society - net addiction, and how people treat the Internet as if their lives depended on it. That led me to embark on a little research on the topic, which eventually cumulated into this post.

International Shutdown Day is back for the second year running, this time on 3rd May, 2008.

Shutdown Day was founded with the sole purpose of spreading awareness about the pitfalls and dangers that lie in the excessive use of television, computers, and computing equipment like game boxes, cell phones, music players, online social websites, etc. that impinge on social space and interaction amongst our communities.

That means no television watching, no computers, no Wii gaming, no blogging, no twitter, no IM, who can stomach all that and still remain sane in this Internet age?

The idea of Shutdown Day project is simple - just shutdown your computer for one whole day of the year and involve yourself in some other activities: outdoors, nature, sports, fun stuff with friends and family - whatever, just to remind yourself that there still exists a world outside your monitor screen.

Because we have become so accustomed to a life dominated by our computers and the Internet, we sometimes forget there is a beautiful world waiting for us to enjoy outside the computer screen.

In a personal capacity, I fully support this crusade and have pledged to shutdown my laptop and get disconnected from the web on Shutdown Day. That means no emails, no blogging, no IM, no twitter, no Youtube, - get totally unplug.

As much as I applaud the founders for starting this movement, I must say one of the points in the “Take Action” page had me scratching my head in wonderment.

Aren’t we suppose to shutdown our computers on Shutdown Day? Then why are the founders asking us to “Register online on Shutdown Day”? I really can’t reconcile with that point.

Can you survive for 24 hours without your computer? If you are brave enough to take up this challenge, go pledge your support for the cause to pull the plug – at least for a day. It’s time to hit the beach and ride the surf!

Earlier on I ran a little contest offering 4 lucky readers a chance to win free ad spots, it is also my small gesture of giving back to the community. Over the course of 2 weeks, the contest received a total of 10 entries. As there are 4 ad spots available to be won, the chances of winning are pretty high.

Without further ado, let’s announce the winner….

Etienne Teo @ EtienneTeo.com
Kirk @ Jamaipanese.com
Mark @ MeAndMyDrum.com
Michael Kwan @ Beyond The Rhetoric

Congratulations to the 4 lucky winners for winning a month of free advertising! You should have each received an email from me explaining the details. While I cannot offer all participants a month’s free advertising, I can send you a little link love here as thanks for entering the contest.

Derek Semmler
Goodies Hunter
Paolo U
QuaChee
Romandock
Super Blogging

Thanks everyone for entering the contest and do stay tuned for more fun and games, as you never know when I will launch another contest.

The famous John Cow dot Com recently changed its web host and is now hosted on a dedicated server from Top Hosting Center, which has sponsored a brand new XBOX360 Elite and a copy of the new Grand Theft Auto IV (scheduled for release at the end of April) for the cow’s latest contest.

The winner will be picked via a lottery and you can choose how many tickets that you want to have in the draw! The more tickets that you have the greater chance of winning this elite prize! There are various ways to earn those tickets:

250 tickets - Write a small blurb about this contest (minimum 100 words) on your blog. A linkback to the prize sponsor THC and to the contest page is required.

250 tickets - Become an affiliate with THC and put up one of their banners on your blog for the Cow to verified.

25 tickets – Comment on another blog’s latest post about this contest will get you 25 tickets, as will leaving this link in a new forum thread somewhere, or when you mass message your myspace or facebook friends.

25 tickets – Subscribe to JohnCow RSS feed and THC’s blog feed.

The contest will run until the 30th of April, that’s when GTA4 is scheduled for release. Good luck folks!