Through Eyes From Afar: July 2010

Jul 31, 2010

Toilet Training Video

For those requiring peeing or pooping instructions:

Jul 25, 2010

Travel as a profession and misconceptions

1. I frequently get comments from people about travel opportunities being tied solely to the amount of money one possesses.

That could not be farther from the truth.
A lot of people travel as part of their jobs - journalists, salespeople, entertainers, sailors, air stewards, soldiers and geologists.

I, for one, traveled as part of my job requirements (see picture below from my offshore assignment)

2. A lot of people associate travel with luxury hotels, lazing on the beach while being served champagne by bikini girls/shirtless hunks and other such bourgeois fantasies.

Not quite in all cases....it can involve being shuffled from airports to dirty budget hotels while being paid a pittance for a daily allowance by a stingy boss.

Or worse if one is a poor freelance writer for travel magazines - sleeping in train stations, dodging dodgy characters while trying to get your scoop and long long queues at the (not surprisingly) slow government offices waiting for this or that documentation.

And being stuck in the middle of nowhere.

The rewards of travel does offer some sort of a remuneration for such pains though: fantastic scenery, experiencing different cultures and gaining invaluable insights and freedom from the constraints of a more "sedentary" life.

3. We are no longer in the age of discovery and exploration - the age of Italian explorer Christopher Columbus, or Chinese admiral Zheng He (who circled the globe in his giant fleet). Instead we have been reduced to armchair travelling (from the TV screen) or being pushed like cattle through some overcrowded tour bus with fat tourists.

We (the most likely readers of this blog - products of an intensely commercialized capitalist world) have been made to think that all if necessary to keep society (or rather ourselves) running is to sit behind a computer screen, sitting in cramped caves we call "offices" for most of our lives; and then going to "gyms" to lose the fat we gain from all that sitting around - all the while aspiring to become master liars in ridiculous monkey suits so that our offspring can being recycled in the same corporado illusion.

One forgets the simple pleasures a rural farmer in the mountains of Macchu Picchu derives from the sights around him after a long day's toil,

the starlit nightskies that enchant surveyors stationed far from civilization, or the songs sung by tribesmen gathered around a fire every night. These people are surely many times financially poorer than you or I (who likely spends time after work stuck to the TV or computer screen), yet they are much "richer" in life.

Well, should you ever get tired of spending all your time stuck in a ~~glass cage~~ office trying to make sure that your "offspring" also get 30 years in one - try this. Or become a tour guide. You might find that more rewarding than the next sports car or luxury condo you get.

Jul 18, 2010

Bikini Sunday

For those wanting to know more about the origin of the bikini, click here.

Jul 10, 2010

Internet and Otaku Slang

Some internet terms I have picked up over the past year:

FTW - for the win (used for praise)
Epic Win - similar to FTW but the word "epic" indicates a greater magnitude of praise
Epic Fail - the opposite of Epic Win
LOL - laughs out loud
Flame - to instigate an online argument
Troll - someone who posts irrelevant material, flames or is otherwise being intentionally annoying.
Blog - short for weblog, an online diary or notebook of sorts, which may or may note be about an individual's life.
Vlog - a video version of a blog
Blogger - someone who writes a blog
Blogosphere - the collective community of all blogs
Forum - a discussion board on the internet
Spam - a breach of netiquette where users repeat the phrase over and over.
Double post - posting the same message twice
Liek, caek, haet, raep - Like, cake, hate, rape (Not sure why its spelled this way O_o)
Thread - a collection of posts under a common topic on a forum
Derail - to steer the discussion away from the original topic. Common on Sankaku.
Moderator - someone who maintains and presides over a discussion board.
Widget - an interactive component of a graphical user interface
RSS - Really Simple Syndication. See full explanation here.
Bump - to push a discussion thread to the top of the heap on a forum by posting anything.
Google it - to search for information using an internet search engine (usually Google)
Trap - a male that appears to be female
Photoshopped - an image that has been digitally altered
Fap - to masturbate
Bone - (masculine) to have sex with
CG - computer generated graphics
Newbie, noob, newfag - someone new
Avatar - a picture that accompanies your profile. Get one here.
Meme - a catchphrase or concept on the internet (an inside joke of sorts)
Pedobear - an internet meme caricature of pedophiles

Some otaku (anime culture) terms I have picked up over the past year:

Otaku - geek
Loli - an underage girl
Shota - an underage boy
Lolicon - someone who loves loli
Shotacon - someone who loves shota
2D - the drawn (anime) world
3D - the real world
Weaboo - someone not japanese who is infatuated with japanese culture; japanophile
Oppai - breasts
Kawaii - cute
Moe - cute in reference to a particular character in video games, anime or manga
Anime - Japanese animation
Manga - Japanese comics
Dakimakura - A body pillow, typically with a drawing of an anime girl
Ronery - lonely otaku
Seiyuu -a voice actor/actress for an anime character
Meganekko - the love of girls wearing glasses
Gravure idol - Japanese models who pose for photos and videos, often sexual in nature
Junior idol - same as gravure idol but usually underage
Tsundere, yandere - see here.
Believe it! - a catchphrase from popular anime series Naruto
Shoujo - female oriented genre
Shonen - male oriented genre
AMV - Anime music video, a fan made tribute to one or more anime series with music