Plinan's Channel P

They know their target market well.

I posted a website design job on elance.com today. As usual, within 3 hours there were 11 proposals waiting for me to review. All of them with sample works from their previous projects. I thought it would take me forever to review them. But lucky for me, most of them forgot the golden rule of bidding on projects - Show Only Your Best Works!

10 out of 11 of the proposals had way too many work samples. And as soon as I saw one sample that looked cheap or crappy, I would disregard the provider, even if he/she has other work samples that were of good quality. Why? Because I don't like inconsistency in quality, and showing low quality work isn't exactly professional. If you don't even have time (or the eyes) to filter out the bad grapes, will you have time to make sure my project gets done well?

So keep the number of samples small, and don't show people lemons! Show Only Your Best Works, keep only the best in your portfolio and I guarantee you that you will get more jobs awarded to you.

Oh and another thing, if your sample contains NSFW content, state it in your proposal/message! Good thing I was at home when I reviewed these proposals...

I asked my VA (virtual assistant) to look into this but eventually I found out this was really easy. If you only need ONE ISBN, go to this website and follow the steps. You only need basic information about yourself and you can get an ISBN in no time for $125 dollars. I also applied for a Bar Code at the same time since I knew how much I want to charge for the book so in total it cost me $150 dollars. You can add more information about your book after you got the ISBN. I finished this process within an hour.

What you need:
1. Go to this website Application for a Single ISBN  (this link will redirect you to MyIdentifiers.com)
2. Pick a package and fill out the forms to apply.
3. You get your ISBN right away!

If you need more than one ISBN, go here http://www.isbn.org/standards/home/isbn/us/secureapp.asp

Interesting talk. How do You want to change the world?

YouTube - Seth Godin on the tribes we lead

GE-McKinsey 9-box matrix - A tool that helps big companies manage their business units.

Breakfast:

Last day!! I am starting to desire for normal food now... Not really missing meat so much, but milk and egg will make my eating life so much easier! Thinking about cakes, desserts, salad with sesame dressing, cappuccino, ice cream.....!

Anywayz, breakfast was good! Oatmeal (maple syrup flavor) plus raisins. Mixed peach juice. Healthy and tasty. One of the few times I enjoyed eating oatmeal ;)

Lunch:

Hot pot with onions, tofo, udon, mushroom. Rice. pickles. I am running out of ideas...

Afternoon snack:

Discovered an interesting snack - grilled senbei + mochi with black bean. Didn't like it at first but after the second one I couldn't stop eating :) Definitely will come back to this one. Also had some grape juice and a Oseki Han rice balls (red rice balls). Everything I ate in the afternoon was good!

Dinner:

My girlfriend found that Coco Ichiban Curry has a "Low allergy dish" that's vegan and we couldn't wait to try it! Quite good and I couldn't tell it's vegan at all.

Conclusion:

Veganism isn't for the faint of heart! However I did feel in general a little sharper mentally, especially in the afternoon when I used to have a post-lunch food coma. But keeping up with it is a very difficult task - not being able to eat eggs and milk is especially difficult. I was constantly checking the ingredients of food that went into my mouth. But on the other hand, it was great to know exactly what I ate and what I needed to eat. Although I decided not to continue it, I've also decided to cut down on my meat in-take and try a fish+veg diet. It was a great experiement and I encourage everyone to try it! :)

Breakfast:

Banana. I didn't have time for breakfast today as I was running late for work. A healthy banana would do until lunch.

Lunch:

I had no idea what to eat so ended up eating soba again. But this time I avoided the dipping sauce that comes with the soba as I was afraid it might be made with fish ingredients. So instead of dipping the soba in the sauce, I dipped them in the miso soup... I did a quick search on it after lunch and yes indeed the sauce was made with bonito flakes.

After lunch snack:

Orange juice, and dried soy beans. Veganism = a lot of soy products.

Dinner:

Chinese restaurant. The waiter was kind enough to help us find food on the menu that suit our diet. Ended up with two pan fried vegetable dishes and a daikan rice cake (had to pick out the meat in them though...)

Breakfast:

Banana, mixed nuts, and more mixed nuts (this one contains sunflower seeds and some kind of red Chinese dried herb, see picture). Also had an orange juice to start my day.

Lunch:

Soba with fried vegetables. A colleague took me to a new soba noodle shop and the noodles were really good! Afternoon I got hungry very quickly though so I bought some chestnut snacks and more senbei.

Dinner:

I decided to try my hands on yaki udon (fried think noodles). Fried tofo, bean sprouts, mushrooms, Chinese cabbage, carrots, onions, and most important of all, ginger sauce!. It took me a while to find a sauce that contains neither meat or milk. Finally settled down on the ginger sauce and it tasted great! One of the best vegan meals so far I have to say :)

Breakfast:

banana + strawberry soy milk smoothie! mixed nuts, apple with peanut butter (peanut butter has no butter inside!). very good breakfast, healthy and tasty!

Lunch:

Went to a convenience store (my favorite Natural Lawson) and got two rice balls and some inari sushi made of fried tofo. Also got a weird tasting Yuzu Green Tea produced by Lawson...

Very lucky in the afternoon, found a place that serves soy milk latte (green tea and coffee)! good stuff in cool Japanese coffee house.

Dinner:

Dinner was Tomato Ramen. Friend introduced this place and told me it's vegan and quite tasty. I ordered a Tomato Eggplant Ramen, and it was tasty indeed with the thin noodles! I had to order additional noodles... ;)   However afterwards when I was reading some of the materials in the store, I realized they might have used egg white in the soup!!!!!!!! :(   but I am not 100% sure about that. will need a good Japanese translator to go with me next time and check with the chefs.

Breakfast+lunch:

I woke up late today so only had one meal before dinner. Started with banana,mikan, and mixed nuts (cashew, almond, walnut, macadamia nuts). Then I had natto temaki and kimchee temaki. Soba tea. and black coffee to support me until dinner.

Dinner:

I've planned to go to a friend's birthday dinner party - a 6 course dinner with delicious mixed Asian cuisine! I had a total of 2 half-Thai-spring-roll (the other half has a small shrimp so I couldn't eat it, a good friend volunteered to eat the shrimp. ) and beer, ginger ale, and shochu. Not exactly the normal amount of food I eat for dinner...

After dinner:

I met up with my sweety and we headed for some pasta. Great idea! I had a plate of penne with tomato sauce and assorted vegetables. plus two more cocktail (brandy+ginger, Manhatten (wiskey)). After this I had a couple more cocktails throughout the night (it was a saturday). Being a vegan, drinking is so much easier than eating!

Breakfast:

Tofu nabe (leftover from last night)

I added udon noodles to the soup and had a big breakfast. Finished the hot pot.

Lunch:

bean sprouts, plain noodles (very few), banana, double espresso coffee

I went to a Thai restaurant with a friend and ordered Pad Thai - BAD CHOICE!! It came with eggs on the noodles and I tried to remove them piece by piece noodle by noodle. Took me too long to do even one so I gave up and just ate bean sprouts that came with the plate. Afterward I got some black coffee and ate banana in the office in the afternoon.

Pre-dinner snack:

Senbei again. Walked around the convenience store and couldn't find anything other than senbei. No more afternoon chocolate for me!

I also ate a little bit of seed weed snack before dinner. Quite delicious but it's almost like eating air, not filling at all!

Dinner:

pieces of tomatoes and veg from a Caesar salad, grilled shiitake mushroom, grilled asparagus, and kimchee, raw thin slices of daikon, beer.

Had dinner with a friend at an Izakaya that specialises in fish @_@. Izakaya usually has a good variety of food selections so I thought it would be fine. This izakaya did have a lot of selections, but they are all seafood! The Caesar salad came and there were ham and an egg on top... no luck tonight. Filled myself up with beer and called it a night.

Breakfast:

Mikan, banana, soy milk, Weetabix, natto temaki, green tea.

This is my first vegan meal! Actually quite typical for breakfast. I did notice my cereal was not qualified and had to go with Weetabix. This was also a much bigger meal than I normally eat for breakfast.

Pre-lunch snack:

Senbei - Japanese rice cracker

Most senbei are probably ok as they are made from rice. Some of them do contain some forms of milk though. But for the most part this was a good snack that helped me stay full until lunch.

Lunch:

Soba lunch set (this is the actual photo I took on my cellphone)

Soba is an easy choice. I ordered a large size of soba because I was feeling extra hungry. Not sure if it has anything to do with the vegan breakfast...

Pre-dinner snack:

Banana, black coffee

Brought a banana from home and had to get coffe to stay awake at work :p

Dinner:

Tofu nabe (hot pot)

I decided to make a tofu hot pot because 1. it was freaking cold in Tokyo! and 2. I love tofu. I went to the grocery store and realized once I walk past the fruit and veg area, there's not much else I can eat! I boiled all the materials (tofu, fried tofu, mushrooms, onion, tomato, green veg) and only put salt in the soup. The taste wasn't strong enough in the end so I added seedweed when I ate it. Overall it was ok, need to work on the choice of soup base next time.

This is too good to pass up.

"In 1969, a 14-year-old Beatle fanatic named Jerry Levitan, armed with a reel-to-reel tape deck, snuck into John Lennon's hotel room in Toronto and convinced John to do an interview about peace. 38 years later, Jerry has produced a film about it. Using the original interview recording as the soundtrack, director Josh Raskin has woven a visual narrative which tenderly romances Lennon's every word in a cascading flood of multipronged animation. Raskin marries the terrifyingly genius pen work of James Braithwaite with masterful digital illustration by Alex Kurina, resulting in a spell-binding vessel for Lennon's boundless wit, and timeless message. " - YouTube

• Bad economy -> big companies lay off people, try to be cost effective

• Advancement in communication enables tasks to be divided and outsourced

Combining both -> more freelancers, more remote workers, and better productivity.

maybe, maybe not.

Related links:
http://webworkerdaily.com/
http://www.elance.com/

I don't have an answer to that, but let's look at the situation here.

Things to expect:
 
Consumer side:
1. consumer spending will go down
2. big purchases will be delayed/canceled
3. cheaper alternatives will be used instead
4. thus sales of inferior goods will increase, e.g. online entertainment
5. ......

Supplier side:
1. cost cutting will be the main task
2. none essential activities will be cut
3. cheaper alternatives will be used to replace existing process, e.g. outsourcing
4. ......

never mind, thinking too much about this is kind of boring. The fact is, a bad economy doesn't mean you have to stop living your life. The simple answer to the above question is, continue with what you planned to do and wanted to do. Of course, be a little more careful on your finance, but don't put your life on hold and wait for the bad economy to pass.

Now an image that has little relevancy to this post...

I don't have a theme for this blog.

The number one rule for a successful blog is to have a theme that people are interested in. To focus. But I don't have one. I don't have any idea what that theme should be. To me, having a theme is like asking me to only think about one topic. Unfortunately my brain doesn't work that way. It goes wherever it wants to go depending on the time of the day, the temperature, and the degree of interestingness at work. One moment I could be thinking about dolphin brains , the next moment I'd be thinking about how to improve the urinals.

If that's how my brain works, that's how my blog is gonna work too.

I don't have a theme for this blog. And I am just gonna keep it that way for now. If you have any other suggestions however, feel free to leave a comment and tell me how you'd like to improve the urinals.

The sky turned dark this morning

as I was walking towards my everyday

lifelessness

joylessness
 
existencelessness



Maybe it's time to close my eyes again

time to let my ears guide me

to where I wanted to be

where I should have been




Sleepy, so so sleepy

Where is the perfect pillow?

Sleepy, oh so sleepy

Where is my perfect pillow?




(update 12/10/2008: This is such a terrible attempt at writing lyrics... lol -Plinan)

SeeqPod - Playable Search

"It always feels like there's an earthquake going on. maybe my heart is pounding so hard that it's rocking my immediate world." - Plinan http://twitter.com/plinan/status/972988879