I found a couple of pretty awesome Tourism Facebook Pages to share. They’ve got quite a number of elements that make a great Page (great content, engagement and even landing page).

1. Canada Keep Exploring

Link: http://www.facebook.com/KeepExploring

Great pictures. They respond frequently to postings and comments. And provide up to date, non Lonely Planet stuff in their stream daily.

The only thing I wish they would change – their welcome tab still says “Congratulations, William & Kate!”.

2. Arizona – The Official Grand Canyon State’

Link: http://www.facebook.com/arizonatravel

Beautiful design of the Landing Page – and it actually gives you a Visitor’s Guide. How awesome is that?

3. See Sydney

Link: http://www.facebook.com/seesydney

4. I Love NY

Link: http://www.facebook.com/iloveny

One of the oldest (and most catchy) city brands around.

5. Love UK

Link:  http://www.facebook.com/LoveUK

This asks for a Like before you can view content. But they’ve got compelling content for any person wanting to visit the UK. So thumbs up to them for this

And they say… “It doesn’t matter if you’re living here, visiting here, wanna visit here, leaving here (don’t go!) or none of the above, join us in spreading the Love UK.”

6. See Australia

Link: http://www.facebook.com/SeeAustralia

7. Georgetown, Penang

Shoutout to Penang’s Facebook Page. 100,000+ Likes, frequent updates and interaction, and shareable content (they post LOADS of pictures).

Now, if only they could Like other pages other than CM Lim Guan Eng….

Link: http://www.facebook.com/VisitPenang

Bonus Mention: Tourism Selangor’s Twitter

Link: http://twitter.com/tourismselangor

I just started following them, and I do appreciate their stuff on my Twitter feed, especially since I’m not native to Selangor. So they’re doing a pretty good job so far. Now to replicate that on their pretty dead Facebook Page….

——————————————————————————————————————————————————–

What other great city / Tourism Pages have you come across?

I mean, the average Techcrunch / Mashable / Problogger blog post sees hundreds (if not thousands) of Tweets and Shares, but significantly fewer comments – no matter which commenting platform. The difference is pretty crazy.

I’m of the opinion that social sharing beats comments, hands down, and is just as good a measure of interaction. You may agree / disagree with me on this, but here’s why:

Post comments are just confined to your blog. But when someone shares your site/article, you’re reaching a golden crowd – your sharer’s circle of friends.

When someone comments on your blog, the only people who actually see it are you, the person who commented, and 1% of your site viewers who actually bother reading comments.

But, when someone shares your article with his social networks, you’re reaching his/her circle of friends – that’s the golden crowd right there. Plus, you get the added benefit of a comment attached with his/her Tweet / Share.

Best of both worlds is, of course, the Facebook Comment Box plugin. Lower likelihood of spam, and everyone’s ALREADY logged into their Facebook account anyway – so it’s just a matter of typing something in and submitting. They’ve updated it so that when your someone comments on a shared link on Facebook, the comment will also appear on your site. Pretty neat, eh? But until they manage to make it more “open” ability to import/export comments, Facebook pretty much owns your commenting ass. Not so favourable for larger content sites.

In this day and age, where you have ADD-Internet-users, something as simple as clicking a share button is highly preferable to commenting. It takes a whole lot less effort, but means even more. After all, if someone shares your article, the person is pretty much saying, “this piece has my personal endorsement I think it’s awesome” or “this piece is so shit you have to read it”.

Anyway, rant over.

Over the weekend saw this awesome study about the value of Shares vs. Tweets.. and I can see why a Share is worth more than a Tweet.

Source: http://socialmediatoday.com/boothyboy/275569/facebook-share-vs-twitter-share-which-generates-more-revenue

What do people do on Twitter? Share stuff and read the 10 most recent tweets on their Twitter feed.

What do people do on Facebook? Consume information, check out what their friends are up to, visit their pages… and check out the stuff on their Facebook feed – which is often time the most relevant to them (thanks to Facebook’s scary feed algorithm).

Facebookers are more inclined to share, connect & consume, while Twitterers are more inclined to just share.

Thoughts anyone?

MelSmells: hahahaha really…she just scared of me in clubs then
me: of course. when you’re drunk, you get horny. even i’m scared
MelSmells:  hahahah….depends..i dun need alcohol for that
me: says: ………
me: i’ll be sure to warn may
me: but most of all in an office setting u cant sia suey (translation: embarrass) your company… right? XD
MelSmells: of course… but there’s always lunch time & toilet breaks

….silence….

MelSmells: damn
MelSmells: i’m convincing

It’s cold.
Temperatures tonight are estimated to be 8 degrees. Despite that, I love the weather — allows me to wrap myself up in layers of clothes to keep warm. My sensitive toes are protesting though. They aren’t too happy with the sudden change in temperature. Thankfully, the rest of me is just fine.

AirAsia X has the narrowest seats I’ve ever seen on an airplane. Considering the steal I got it for, I’m completely cool with it. Unfortunately for the grandmother, her back ached for most of the journey. Mum wasn’t too comfortable either so I think if you’re considering traveling by AirAsia X with elderly folk, you might want to think twice. Or even long haul to the UK. Then again, the prices are so low, what do you expect?

A few photos I snapped in my uncle’s garden. Headed to Safety Bay to visit more relatives tomorrow. Let’s hope the sky’s clear

Ta from Perth!

Time. They say it heals. I say it just makes you forget. Sometimes, time can bruise too. It cuts, it scalds and it bleeds you. Sometimes it hurts, but other times, you might find yourself yearning it. In this case, time has done nothing else but numb.

Time. It’s a terror to people. Some don’t realize its importance while others, don’t realize it’s limits. Some, just forget that it just consists of three hands of various lengths on a numbered surface. With time, comes age. With age, comes maturity. With maturity, comes wisdom and as such, is time = wisdom? In this case, time is merely the essence of the day, of the years, left behind to rot.

Time. Makes you think you know things. People. But is one hour of an acquaintance a weaker predictor than a lifetime’s worth of it? In this case, who knows?

I’ve had friends come and go. I’ve had life events come and go. Will I know any better? Will you know any better next time? What if you’ve been married for 40 years and find that you don’t really know it that well after all. What if the same blood flows through your veins, the same personality doesn’t. So what if you’ve known it for almost a decade? Maybe you’ve never really known it at all. Maybe all this while, it was just a mirage, a surface with an underlying serpent waiting to strike. And yet, that may be a tad too harsh.

But people change. Or do they?

We progress. Or do we?

One thing remains for sure.

You think you really know someone? Think again.

Maybe someone knows you. But you sure as hell might not know them.

In this case, I’ll probably never know.

So what’s a friend?

Now, there’s a tough one.

Austrian admits 24-year abuse of captive daughter

By Sylvia Westall

AMSTETTEN, Austria (Reuters) – A 73-year-old Austrian electrical engineer has confessed to holding his daughter captive in a secret, windowless cellar for 24 years and fathering seven children by her, police said on Monday.

Josef Fritzl is seen in this Austrian police handout picture released April 28, 2008. (REUTERS/HO/Police)

The case, centred on a nondescript two-storey building in the small industrial town of Amstetten, bears chilling similarities to that of Austrian Natascha Kampusch who spent eight years locked up in a basement before escaping in 2006.

Some parts of the 60 square metre basement in which the family were kept were no more than 1.70 metres (5 ft 6 in) high and officials said the basement even contained a padded cell.

“This is an appalling crime. I know of no comparable case in Austria,” Franz Prucher, head of security for Lower Austria told a news conference.

Elisabeth Fritzl, 42, says her father, Josef Fritzl, lured her into the basement in 1984 and drugged and handcuffed her before imprisoning her.

Three of her children, aged 19, 18 and 5, had been locked up in the basement with her since birth and had never seen sunlight, police said, raising worries about their physical and mental state. The younger two were boys, the eldest a girl.

The victims are receiving medical treatment, said police.

Three other children — two girls and one boy — were adopted and brought up by Josef and his wife. Neighbours told police they had never heard the children locked in the cellar.

As well as confessing to locking up his daughter for 24 years and siring the seven children, Fritzl admitted to burning the body of the seventh child in a furnace used to heat the building when it died soon after birth, said Franz Polzer, head of criminal investigations in the state of Lower Austria.

Investigators combed through the cells where the victims had been held captive. Forensic experts in white uniforms and gloves carried out boxes of evidence from the building, which is home to several other families.

AUTHORITARIAN

Fritzl, whom police described as “dynamic, bossy and authoritarian”, had hidden the entrance to the cell behind shelves and only he knew the secret code for the reinforced concrete door, said officials.

Photographs showed a narrow passageway leading into other rooms which included a cooking area, with children’s drawings on the walls, a sleeping area and a small bathroom with a shower.

The victims’ only sources of information from the outside world were a television and radio.

Authorities said there were still many questions hanging over the case, such as the conditions surrounding the births of the children and how those locked in the cellar were provided with food and clothes.

Amstetten, located in rolling hills about 130 km (80 miles) west of Vienna, is a town of about 22,000 people.

The case unfolded when the 19-year-old girl became seriously ill and was taken to hospital, where doctors appealed for her mother to come forward to give details of her medical history.

The girl was suffering cramping fits caused by oxygen deficiency, chief doctor Albert Reiter told journalists, and was currently in a “severe but stable condition” in hospital. The cellar had been fitted with a basic ventilation system.

Fritzl brought Elisabeth and her remaining two children out of the basement, telling his wife their “missing” daughter had chosen to return home, police said.

Elisabeth agreed to make a thorough statement to the police after receiving assurances she would have no further contact with her father, who she said abused her from the age of 11.

SHAME

The case has raised questions about how authorities and neighbours failed to notice anything unusual in the “house of horrors”, on a busy street with shops, not least because over the years officials said Fritzl built extensions to the cellar.

“The community of Amstetten should drown in shame … The neighbours are turning a blind eye,” the Oesterreich newspaper wrote in an editorial.

Polzer said Fritzl had led a “double life” for 24 years.

“He deceived us all,” he told reporters. “This man, who already had a family with seven children by his wife, had in this cellar seven more children by his own daughter.”

Another puzzle is how Josef’s wife Rosemarie could have remained ignorant.

Police have said they believe Rosemarie did not know what happened to her daughter when she disappeared in 1984. It was assumed Elisabeth had left voluntarily when her parents received a letter from her saying they should not search for her.

After Elisabeth disappeared, Fritzl said Elisabeth had joined a sect and that she had left the children on the doorstep. He forced Elisabeth to handwrite letters to prove his claims, said the police.

Psychiatrist Max Friedrich, who treated Kampusch, said the children who had been held in the cellar would need trauma therapy and were undergoing tests in hospital, in particular for problems with their eyes and skin due to the lack of daylight.

By contrast, the children raised by their grandparents were integrated into the community, said officials, noting they were members of the police sports club and voluntary fire brigade.

(Additional reporting by Alexandra Zawadil in Vienna and Reuters Television)

Copyright © 2008 Reuters

Father, daughter have child together

A SOUTH Australian father and daughter have revealed they are a couple, and have had a child together.

John and Jenny Deaves reunited 30 years after Mr Deaves separated from Jenny’s mother. Jenny was 31 and just two weeks after meeting, father and daughter had sex. “John and I are in this relationship as consenting adults,” Mrs Deaves told the Nine Network’s 60 Minutes tonight. “We are just asking for a little bit of respect and understanding.” Their nine-month-old daughter Celeste, shown on TV, appears fit and healthy. Mrs Deaves said soon after reuniting with her father she began to see him as a man first and her father second. “I was looking at him, sort of going, oh, he’s not too bad,” she said. “Like you might look at a man across the bar at a nightclub.” Mrs Deaves brought two children, Samantha and Alex, into the relationship after splitting from her former partner. Mr Deaves admitted that he “initially” thought having sex with his daughter was wrong. “Emotions take over, as people no doubt realise, there are times during your life where emotions do rule the heart, it rules the head,” he said. “I knew it was illegal, of course I knew it was illegal but you know, so what.” Mrs Deaves said the physical relationship with her father was like “a sexual relationship with any other man”. For Mr Deaves the sexual relationship was “absolutely fantastic”. A South Australian police media spokesman said “the couple is being monitored”. ** Visit this

The fact that the murderer(s) could actually commit such a henious crime with such brutality is a splash of cold water in our faces. This is not just what we can read in the newspapers, or watch in Hollywood movies – it’s real. Monsters like this live among us. They could be anyone – our friends, part of our family, the (wo)man we serve in our shops everyday, or just the average person we so happen to bump into on the street.

This year itself, there have been several child abuse/murder/rape cases in the newspapers. How many other children continue to suffer silently? Most importantly – how many of these monsters are actually found and forced to serve their time to repay for their brutality? How many of them are still walking among us today, endangering the children around us?

In a conversation with May and Sim last night, we were talking about how our youth today is brought up in a vicious environment. It’s not foreign for us to read about bus crashes, plane crashes, murders, rapes, burglaries and all sortsof crimes. Many of us are now desensitized by this material and many are now living in a state of acceptance of this reality! “Normal lah… nowadays, people are cruel..” Is this really enough? How can anyone accept this as a reality? Our police forces need to be updated with the latest technology and halt their petty and incessant internal battles and concentrate on the real deal here – people, especially children, are hurt, abused, killed each day and they do nothing about it. Instead they run around nabbing suspected khalwat individuals, or jailing youths for months on end for not carrying an IC or worser still, collecting duit kopi for petty crimes and letting these suspects go. Do these people, our law enforcement, realize that there’s a bigger picture here? Today, there are at least 3 articles in Nation pull out of theStar about murders or missing persons. I’m confident that there are a lot more out there that don’t receive coverage.

What are our law enforcers doing to combat all this?

You cannot stop crimes. You can prevent them. You can lower the risk of these crimes.

One thing our country doesn’t have is a proper social services department to act on reports on abuse against children and the elderly. My own neighbour used to abuse his old father each day. We would have reported it but to whom? Would the authorities take charge, considering it’s a “family matter”?

It’s appalling how sour our country has turned out to be on our 50th year of independence. Have we made any progress? Sure, we have the amazing infrastruture, architecture and brilliant graduates churned out this year. But we’re so concentrated on success that we don’t look into the heart of the problem - the people. Do we really want our children growing up in this environment? This place where letting our children run free in the playground puts them at risk of cruel sexual predators and when you do, at the end of the day “Who asked you to let your children play unsupervised?”

Our old battles were fought against the British, the Japanese, the communists for all these crimes. We read articles, books on how brutal crimes against women and children were during the Japanese occupation. But today, it’s our own people we need to fear. Our own people to protect our children from.

Question now is whether or not we’re putting in enough efforts to combat crime against the people. We capture bloggers, jail them, grill them for hours over a comment left by a random person on their websites. Do we do the same for the murderers of the Mongolian woman, Altantunya? Or Canny Ong incident, not too long ago? We focus on the high profile cases. It takes our law enforcers years to solve a crime. And then what? Why are our papers reporting on Tun Mahathir’s daily diets when more coverage can be given to raise the awareness that we’re not safe anymore?

I’m not saying other countries are perfect. Madeleine McCann’s disappearance in Portugal marks the sinking feeling that there are more of these child predators out there and no child, boy or girl, seems to be safe from them.

How are we to raise children in an environment like this? How are we to do so when every minute of the day, we worry for their safety? I don’t have children of my own yet. But when the time comes, I wonder what sort of world they will be born into. It’s bad enough that our country has expanded at the expense of our rainforest and environment. But to bring a child up in this brutal madness? Maybe we need to reevaluate our priorities and values.

So really, where do we go from here?

Well, I think Mr. Nasir was a tad too preoccupied with state affairs to clearly verify the meaning of the word ‘nation’ with a reliable source. How dedicated our politicians are! So I thought I’d give him a hand if his dedication has been keeping him away from the good ol’ dictionary.

THE PSYCHOBABBLEGUIDE TO THE USE OF ONLINE DICTIONARIES
*illustrations included

Step 1:
Visit any search engine and key in the words “Online English Dictionary” (in any case – lower or upper – oh, in simple conversational English, it’s called capital letters and small letters). My all-time favourite is still Google, with Yahoo! coming in a quick second.

Step 2:
In a mere 0.09 seconds (varying with your type of Internet connection, Tambun might be a secluded area with a limited (or no) broadband connection, so dialup might take a wee longer. Not to worry, I am sure it will not take up too much time of our dedicated leaders. The top three online english dictionaries listed on the Google search engine are Merriam-Webster Online, Cambridge Dictionaries Online and Dictionary.com. Feel free to click on any of them. All very reliable sources.

Step 3:
My all time favourite is Merriam-Webster Online. Simply enter the word whose meaning eludes your memory at the moment and click “Search”. I chose the word “nation” as an example in honour of Mr. Nasir Ismail.

Step 4:
Read.

Simple, is it not? It’s quicker than it seems. Although, if it seems too tedious for the said esteemed leader, he can easily ask. I have decided to take the initiative and search for the meanings of the word myself. In order to assure the readers of the validity of the results, I will share with you the meaning of the word “nation” from two other reliable sources.

Cambridge Dictionaries Online

Dictionary.com

It seems as if all three results have yielded a common theme. “independent status” (Merriam-Webster, ND), “own government” (Cambridge Dictionaries, ND), “possess a government peculiarly its own” (Dictionary.com, ND).

If the possession of a specific government and independence imperative, then the impression that Malaysia was born 50 years ago is, in fact, accurate. Therefore TourismMalaysia should not be faulted for their choice of words. Before 1957, there was no Malaysia. There was no Malaysian government. There was no UMNO and definitely no UMNO Youth. No PAS or DAP or Keadilan or MCA/MIC. There was no “Malaysia is an Islamic state” and without a doubt there were no politicians making such ridiculous wise stimulating statements in a major news daily.

I digress. Malaysia is a country of Malays, is it not? Well, according to our esteemed politician it is. Apparently, the influx of Chinese, Indians, indigenous people and the dan lain-lains are, well, nonexistent.

However, our esteemed politician chose to deviate from his initial point and state that Malaysia has come a long way since the “imperialists’ economic marginalisation”. It seems that I may have grossly underestimated his command of English.

That aside.

Today, our young politicians seem to be broaching on very thought-provoking subjects. Let’s hope they continue toeing that thin and dangerous line between unity and disharmony. Simple statements like that can provoke the uproar of the secondary citizens of Malaysia, like us. Perhaps his brain-mouth filter is due for maintainence.

We celebrated KingCheese’s birthday on the 2nd of June.. it was a surprise thing orchestrated by Steph@Pots herself. The plan was for us to get a cake and be there by 9, hiding somewhere. We (Murli, Jack, Ann, Dev, Danny, Shean, Mirness and I) did not even know the people who were supposed to be there. Shean, Jack, Mirness and I got there at approximately 8.30pm and bumped into Murli so we decided to sit outside KingCheese’s place and dig into our McDs drivethrough buys. Past 9, the place was still empty and Ann,Dev&Danny weren’t even there yet. Steph@Pots hadn’t called to inform us about their pending arrival and we were just cluelessly standing around talking. When Ann,Dev&Danny got there, we decided to go in anyway. KingCheese’s parents, his brother Dex, and Xian Jin greeted us and … okay. I’m starting to drift here and tell stories like an old grandma.

Anyway, after an hour plus of waiting with no appearance from the guests of honor, Dev decided to call KingCheese to rush him back with a fictional online group meeting.

Dev: King! Where are you??
King: KLCC, why?
Dev: We have a group meeting at 10 la King!
King: OH YAAAAA!!!! I’m sorry la Dev!

“Oh ya??” It was fictional la.. I don’t know why he said “Oh Ya.” KingCheese’s so blur. Next time, I’ll just say, “King! You owe me 50bucks!” He might just buy it and pay me (pun unintended).

Anyway, not long later, I got a miss call from Steph indicating that they’d just left KLCC and we went to hide in the music room. Shortly after, this group of guys appeared outta nowhere and hid with us. When the guests of honor arrived, KingCheese’s excited brother, Dex, dragged him to the music room to ‘show him something’ and that’s when we surprised him. Typically blur KingCheese? He didn’t suspect a thing. He was so blur, he didn’t even see Xian Jin sitting on the sofa in his livingroom watching tv.

=.=”.

After a round of HappyBirthdays, we found out that the guys were his old school mates Steph@Pots invited and then we brought out the cake! SecretRecipeTiramisu! Apparently, KingCheese’s favourite. The night went on with beers, Martell, cakeeating, tv watching, talking, doing stupid things with Dex’s toy gun and slingshot, guys jamming in the music room, our own little clubbing session, dance classes for Murli and Mirness and lots and lots of PDA from the royal couple. Scarysial! So PDA.

It was really fun, the dancing, the company and all.. and King has Steph to thank for all that. Heh Heh..

Oh! And King’s little brother can cook! He fried rice for us at like… 1AM and it was goodshyt. He’s 11 and cooks with more expertise than me! But hey, I’m a lousy comparison =)

Photos again!

Murli needin some lovin’!

Happy family: Dev and his Bees.. =)

Do not ask me why Murli did that “I’m tryin to be cute” face with a gun when Danny said “Do somethin’ kinky!”

Inevitable camwhoring

===================================

Exams are over!

Haha.. and so’s my first semester in second year. Haven’t done much since Friday but expect a couple of photo-filled blogposts in the next day or two.

Photos from
*King’s birthday
*Gig at LaundryBar (Project Bazooka)
*Penang
*Elvi’s birthday surprise

Yes.. it’s going to be photofilled!

Stay tuned =)