Assalamualaikum, my dear readers,...

Last weekend has been interesting and very fruitful to say the least, since for the very first time, I had an opportunity to meet eye-to-eye, face-to-face with other bloggers whom blogs I thoroughly enjoyed (those listed on my Frequent list). There are two planned activities on that Saturday, the first one being the forum at Rumah Pena, and the second one is the Poolside BBQ Party at Basri's place in Mutiara Subang. And on Sunday evening, some of us meet again for bowling at Alamanda before phased out to kak P'nut/ abang Tokei residence for dinner.

The forum at Rumah Pena is a little academical, with focus on the functionality of Blogs as a medium to express ideas and literatures. The main objective of the forum are to promote Blog as a tool for established writers (Pena's members to be precised) to embrace their target audience more effectively, and to take-into-accounts the readers' (who are the potential buyers of their work) opinions and feedbacks in their writing process. It is a little sad though that the concern of these established writers is not on the feasibility and advantages that blogs has to offer on them, but more of the quality aspect of blog itself. They question the integrity of a posting (entry) in a blog, the editorial lackness of a blog, and the amount of exposure their are willing to comprehend in regards to their "masterpieces". I do understand of all their concerns, but they simply missing the very important point of the forum. They failed to recognize the marketing power that blog possessed, as well as the extensive reachability and cost-effectiveness of a simple blog in this Internet Age.

To draft a format on how a blog should be written; to provide a set of rules governing the usage of proper language, slang, and terms in a blog; and to control the issues that could be covered in an entry, are just some of the misguided suggestion these established writers has to offer. Which is an irony, since the existence of a blog is first and foremost, a form of escapisme from such sets and rules. A blog is very individual, it can be whatever the owner intended it to be, in any form and in any context as the owner wishes, hence the idea of blog to be controlled in any way is just absurd. Blog should never be tailored to the needs of established hardcopy writers to gain acceptance; they are the one that should try to tailor their needs to the nature of blogging world. Blog is merely a tool, just like hammer or screwdriver, you don't modify the tool to suit your application, just like you don't melt the screwdriver to make a hammerhead so that you could nail, instead, you try to change your method in handling the tool-in-hand to make it useful in your context; in the screwdriver example, you can still use the screwdriver's head to knock some nails with proper cautions. Got the picture?! Too bad I was so shy to speak up my mind on that day, maybe the little inferiority of mine has just too strong, after all I am still very new on this blogging thing.

On a positive note, I met a lot of new friends on that weekend. I met PakBear, Salina, Superdiman, Nida, cikLang, Zhoulsz, Yadziz, kakP'nut, abgMeorTokei, MatJan, Purbe, Salji, ND, Basrie, tokRimau, Rudy, uncleEp, Op, cikDaun, Lan, and many others who I don't even know their name or their blog. Quite impressive list of new friends in two days . For me, this is why I blogged. To expand my circle of friends, to widen my network of acquaintances, and perhaps to some extend, to find my potential soulmate, heheheh. And the reason why this blog in particular, is written in English, is because I am looking for a way to improve my grasp on this international language of knowledge. I knew my English is not that impressive, but I believe I am improving everyday, writing in English is just a method to propel me faster in better understanding and command of this language.

Many thanks to those who has willingly drop by and read my two cents. For those new readers, please drop a word or two in my tagboard, atleast I get a chance to know who you guys/gals are. Have a nice day everyone, bubbye...