Some of us humans like to think that the world outside our doors is a mad and dangerous one, but I beg to differ. I think there’s a world far crazier, far more twisted and unsafe, and it’s right under our noses. I call it… The Internet.

Today, to celebrate (?) the madness that is the internet, let us go over some important men of the Intarweb. They are the ones that have graced our webpages for many moons, and offered laughs and constant content for memes all around the world.

One. George Dubya.

The internet has not been kind to him. Okay I must admit, I really feel sorry for the guy, all things considered. I won’t lie, some stuff are funny as heck, but yeah. I wonder who got the shoes he so skillfully dodged. Somebody check eBay!

Two. The Hoff.

Because you know you’ll never be as cool as he is.

Three. The Generic Sad Cosplayer Dude.

The internet is full of him. And the internet cannot get enough of him.

Four. Michael Jackson.

I love him (in Thriller and his old stuff), but dang. I don’t believe everything I hear, but I don’t blame the media (and the internet) for eating it all up. LOL.

Five. Colonel Sanders.

And according to the wise Russel Peters, that hand motion, in Italian, means “WTF”.

Six. Osama Bin Laden.

Well, I can’t really say anything witty about him. Good thing I have this cool picture to make up for it.

Seven. Devastatin’ Dave.

Because he was probably really cool back then. You cannot go wrong with a name (and a get-up) like that.

Eight. Ronald McDonald.

He used to be someone we could look up to.

Nine. You all know this one.

<There was an explanation here, but it exploded on contact with his name>

It is at this day and age where being on the internet may be the worst thing that happens to you, so stop Googling your name for Pete’s sake! Hahaha! Hope you all liked this one, and let me know if I missed anyone important. ;]

So I recently got hooked on Plurk, in case that isn’t already evident. Safe to say that right now, Plurk is giving me what was apparently lacking in my Twitter experience. Lacking, you ask? Well, Twitter did a mighty fine job in the micro-blogging business, but that was just about it for me. On the other hand, Plurk manages to tip-toe up from the realm of micro-blogging to more of social networking, so I think a bit of assessment is in order.

For starters, Plurk gives you more credit for updating your profile information — the fact that they give you credit (see: karma) at all gives it a huge advantage. The feel seems more similar to Facebook feeds than it does to Twitter, because it’s more flexible with the type of content a user can “plurk”. Heck, it even seems more similar to a multiplayer game, what with the points and all. And ultimately, looking at the Plurk timeline actually makes you feel like you’re part of a social network, and non-linear replying seals the deal for me.

But what does Twitter have over Plurk? The blue bird. Let’s face it, save the yellow platypus thing, Plurk creatures are butt-ugly.

But seriously, I think Twitter does have some advantages over Plurk. The very thing that seems to have Twitter left behind is actually it’s strongest advantage to many people — simplicity. And I have a few of my own concerns. Though I’m certainly not at that point, what happens when you get hundreds of friends? Should you be forced to “un-follow” them to avoid a cluttered timeline? Does it end up using way more of a user’s time than what it’s worth? Will no 3rd party tool come to rescue it from the website?

It’s for these reasons that I’m not truly confident in Plurk’s shelf life. After all, from what I see, most if not all social networks reach their saturation point. After that they slowly fade away — or others take their place. I wonder what (or when) Plurk’s downfall is gonna be?

Click it.

I CAN REST (and chat more) NOW.

I’m not going to work tomorrow yay! Well technically I shouldn’t considering I just finished working from home and it’s 2:31 AM. I really must be insane.

Btw I’m joining NaNoWriMo! I know I’m late but I really really think I can do it. And SHOULD do it, for my sanity’s sake. I hope I finish! :]

I highly recommend it. In fact I’ve been pushing it like a drug on some people.

The pros. First off, it’s like unlocking the best of the internet. You’ve probably seen dozens of sites on a certain topic, but how much are you getting out of them? For how accessible the internet seems (what with Google, Technorati, so on), for most of us, sorting out the good sites from the bad is a bit of a challenge. SU does it for you, based on your actual interests. In fact, I found more great sites in a few hours (including actually going through those sites) than I could’ve found in a couple of days normally. The way I see it, you can’t go wrong.

The cons. If you’re anything like me, you may end up spending more time on the internet than you normally do. And if you’ve any game-related sites ticked in your preferences, it won’t be long till you catch a site that catches you back. Not to mention, without SU, you’d probably be a straight-to-the-point kind of person — if you need sites on Web Development, you head for those right away. But with SU, you’d probably spend some time on that nice photography site you… well, stumbled upon, before snapping out of it and remembering the task at hand. Of course you could always tick everything else off in your prefs, but I doubt you’d do that if you’re anything like me. Then again, I may just be going through a hype phase, who knows?

So despite the slightly longer paragraph on cons, I still do highly recommend it. It’s helped me get some ideas for design, art, marketing and even for this blog. Not to mention I get my regular dose of entertainment while I’m at it.

So I just updated my Firefox to version 3.0 — released today in this region. It’s supposedly more efficient in terms of memory, and provides more safety. Naturally it’s hard to really tell at this point, so I’m just gonna nod, smile, and keep that in mind as I keep using it. Thanks to Beta development, we already have add-ons to work with even now (I’m already using a theme similar to my old one, as you can see). One great part about Fx3.0 is that it matches the default theme with whatever system and OS you’re using. So for Mac OS X users, it’ll fit in real well.

Fx3.0 also now complies better with CSS. In fact, it passed the standard Acid2 test, meaning designers don’t need to worry about their CSS tricks. IE’s version 7 (the latest release) on the other hand, failed the test, and the upcoming IE8 is still struggling to hit that mark. Once again our Fox has won the CSS race. You’re a good little foxy, yes you are.

And the Fox chirps! If you go to the Mozilla add-ons page now, you’ll find the TwitterFox add-on, as seen on my screenshot. I’ve only been using it for an hour but I recommend it already. Granted, it suffers the same problem as other Twitter apps with the rate limit, but it’s more convenient than any of the other apps I have. Tucks away nicely when you don’t need it, and easy to pull out when you do. Love the UI too.

Go go, get your Firefox updated!

Woot! I upgraded my Wordpress to the latest stable 2.5.1, and I just finished fixing the little details of the upgrade. Took me a few hours though, there was even a time my posts wouldn’t display because of a rookie mistake haha.

A large part of those few hours was spent looking for an Extended Live Archive tweak to make it compatible with WP 2.5, apparently the most recent fix is for 2.3. Craptastic. I’m settling for the normal archives while waiting for a fix, it won’t be long. That’s what I love about Wordpress, you got this really active community and developer team, so it just keeps getting better.

Speaking of getting better, so what do I think about WP 2.5? Well, I have to admit, it’s eye-candy to me and my judgment so far is pretty much limited to just that. Basically, I haven’t poked around with it enough since I just got it up, but it’s already looking good from here. Everything in it just screams “upgrade”. As for usability issues, I’ll use it a bit more and get back to you. So far what I notice is that it isn’t “simple” anymore, but it sure is functional. And I have no complaints so far, though I’m no expert.

Aaaand speaking of usability, I agree with the rest of the WP universe — if you’re using WP, you must get the admin drop down plug-in. You MUST.