Introducing a new blog

Patrick Food, Website News

This blog originally started off being a catch-all, representing most of the different aspects to my day to day life. After some time, I realised some readers didn’t want to hear about all my work related posts, so I carved off another blog called TheKua At Work.

I now realise that not all of the visitors to this site care about all the different journeys I have with food as well, particularly when I travel overseas. I write about restaurants to help other people out, to provide better information about an experience at a place that I’ve eaten at, or where to find an unusual ingredient, or some other random topic about food. I search other people’s blogs when travelling to find out local places to dine at when travelling and only want to return the favour.

As a result, I’ve started another site, TheKua Does Food, where I will post all the food related entries you would normally find here. Feel free to add it to your RSS feed aggregator (if you have one), or just drop in for a visit now and again.

8 things about me meme

Patrick Games, General, Website News

I’ve been tagged by the 8 things about me meme thanks to Gerrod. The rules start something like this:

  • Each player must post these rules to begin the meme.
  • Each player starts with eight random facts or habits about themselves.
  • People who get tagged must blog about their eight things and post these rules.
  • At the end of your blog, you need to choose eight people to get tagged and list their names.
  • Don’t forget to leave them a comment telling them they’re tagged, and to read your blog.

Not one for rules (and because this meme’s been going around for a while) not to mention that most people haven’t been following the last one, consider yourself tagged if you’re reading this and blog about it if you want to participate.

  1. My hair grows ridiculously long ridiculously quickly. This meant either very shaggy hair, or a haircut every two or three weeks. I always get comments about how quickly my hair grows out. I took nature’s hint and just let it grow.
  2. I had a shaved head in grade twelve. Of course, back to point 1, it was all fine by school formal later that year.
  3. I’m pretty disinterested when it comes to watching most movies, but I’ll always happily watch any horror or thriller movies when the opportunity presents itself.
  4. When I read a book, I generally don’t finish it all because it doesn’t interest me, or I have to read through it as fast as I can.
  5. I always carry a pen and paper with me (where it’s practical) everywhere I go, in the form of a Moleskine journal, or more recently the leather Ciak one that Suz and Al got me last year for Christmas. You never know when you will have a great idea and want to write it down.
  6. I went to my first memorable concert during my first year at work. Amber from uni invited me to see Endorphin at The Zoo in the Valley and since then, I’ve been addicted to seeing live acts where I can.
  7. I never thought I’d last more than two years in the same job for the same company. I’ve now been working for Thoughtworks for over three and a half.
  8. Despite considering myself a foodie, I don’t consider myself one of those foodie snobs. I think some people feel pressured to take me somewhere nice or cook over the top food, but I’m just as happy with what you might consider fairly ordinary food.

Stopping Spammers

Patrick Website News, Work Related

No SpamAnyone who has owned a blog using some standard blogging software will have dealt with horrible spam at sometime. It’s a frustrating and time consuming annoyance, and many people give up to the torrents of spammed comments or trackbacks. Obviously there must be some economic reason for spammers to continue, but I do (and I’m sure that you too) hope they pay dearly for it in karmic retribution later in their life.

I’ve tried several attempts to stop spammers, but most techniques require additional work. I considered the Captcha plugin, that is a popular tool many people adopt, but forces real commenters to work more (by typically reading an image and inputting some numbers or characters) and reduces the accessibility of your website.

My most recent attempt which seems to be working (so far) is the Akismet plugin for WordPress. For other wordpress users out there, I suggest giving it a go.

Away On Holidays

Patrick UK Life, Website News

I’m on holidays for two weeks from today – I’m returning home for a short hiatus since it’s almost been one year since I left for the UK. It’s great being able to wake up late, go out for some great breakfast, read the paper and take my time getting to the airport. I’ve loaded myself with a number of books for the flight, updated the music on my MP3 player and now finishing packing.

I’ll be stopping in Signapore on the way over, so the site might not be updated for about a week.