Behind the Noodle Curtain

Noodle Curtain blog redesign like a more comfortable chair

 

Goodbye to my original blog design above . . .  unless  readers object

The previous blog format for Behind the Noodle Curtain was bothering me for a few reasons. I attempted to look for ways to change it but standard templates have their severe limitations. Not surprising. As a newbie blogger over a year ago, I welcomed the ease with which I could get the Typepad blog going, the writing notwithstanding, as all you had to do was give it a name, write something and press Publish. Almost sounds too easy.

I particularly wanted to make my own photo banner. Apparently it can be done, but you need a degree in quantificational logic. Or rough equivalent to Master's in Pick-Up Sticks. In the next step up from basic template usage is the Typepad Theme Builder. I just couldn't figure out how to get started. Yes, I fell to my knees at the start line.

Then the other night, I resumed the pursuit of my goal because I really wanted to put up that photo banner, because all the other kids had one and I wanted one too! Somehow I picked up the sticks in the right order,  and actually built the design you hold in your eye's hands. It eventually was pretty easy to do. You can  re-arrange, re-divide, re-line up, re-colour and reformat just about everything, plus keep previewing at every stage. It's all through staged prompts on a single web page. Main problem I had was figuring out what Typepad means by Apply. Turns out that when I pressed this "button" on a test format, it applied the test style to my live format or Current Design. I won't bore you with any more knee-scrapers. Needless to say, some of you out there saw my "work in progress".

Some of you may still like the old blog style, and I do like "blogs in black", so to speak, but it all started to look the same to me. The theme has a certain class to it, like long, chrome-trimmed black limos. But it was the details that were not working for me, such as the greenish labels for the sidebar titles and chunky white font within. Two lines in a title label looked awkward but I let them go anyway. The spacing within the labels wasn't always "true". And that particular green really doesn't go with much else, especially, well, any other colour.

I give equal weight to another reason for ditching the black blog. Authors of blogs and websites on the naughty night life seem to favour  black themes  and, frankly, I didn't like the association. Now, maybe some of you don't know what I'm talking about but you only need to Google keywords such as Bangkok, Pattaya, nightlife, bars, Thai girls and massage. You'll get your answer quickly. I am definitely not putting down night life activities or  blogs that focus on same (I am a regular reader of Stickman), it's just that Behind the Noodle Curtain is not  about that feature of Southeast Asia.

So what colour? That was the single most challenging decision. I let 48 hours pass before I finally settled on the colour you see before you here. And I'm still not sure. Here is a screen cap of my alternative:

I quite like this blue one too. But I chose yellow because I like bright shiny things! The blue, while it's attractive, imbues a bit too much seriousness to my blog business. The yellow is fun, possibly reflecting the sanuk of Thailand. Then again, what do I know? Anyone got any preferences?

I could go on and on about the style of the redesign but you can see it right in front of you. I like its subtle fonts and scales, the nice white spacing between sidebar items, the text font and headline font of the first stack. I just like a lot about it.

Maybe some day I'll actually learn about HTML language and start from scratch, sort of. But today's blog platforms are a great start to getting into the blogging game!

September spells relief in site visits to Noodle Curtain

What a difference September makes in site visits to The Noodle Curtain. OK, a few days is hardly a bona fide statistical trend. And, I can assure you, no one is going to do a case study on my blog.

But I'd been rather dismayed by the August daily numbers, running low to high teens most days. I'd come across a discussion at Behind the  Mango Juice. Blogger HooDon was lamenting his receding hit count and some veteran bloggers chipped in with some good observations. (Worth mentioning, of course, is that the main problem was Juice's IP was getting hit by a DDOS attack and he had to change IPs for a bit.)

Chief among the observations is the fact that August is a lame month anyway you look at it because of vacations and general summer doldrums, i.e., people are outside in the western and northern hemispheres. It should all start to improve the next month, namely now. And so it has.

The numbers started upward around Aug. 28 (Thailand time, by the way). Went shooting up, in fact. But that spike didn't occur for four days after  I'd posted on Asian Dating Sites, part 1. That one, legitimately so, has many of the key words people search and believe me, single Thai women looking for males is a popular subject, right along with two of my faves, "bar" and "food."  You can sort of guess that vacationers were returning home and folks were getting ready for September's activities. Maybe. 

The daily numbers remained much higher, doubling and tripling the previous endless days of teen numbers. The numbers remained in the high 20s during the first few days of September. Then wham! This past Saturday and Sunday numbers soared (in my own small scale way) into the 30s and 40s. Tonight, Tuesday (Thai time), I can see page views leaping again. It's only 11 hours into the day and I'm on my way to 50-plus.

OK, these are nothing like the numbers some of my fellow Thailand bloggers are reaching but, the only point I'm making is: Autumn rocks!

In the web industry, most sites get pummeled by visitors Monday mornings, when office workers arrive and the first thing they do after sipping coffee and downing donuts is hit the browser button. You can get scant attention on Saturdays and Sundays, but look out in the weekday mornings. And now that summer vacations have wound down and people are back at their employers' desks, traffic should be up everywhere.

Most of my visitors come from the west, in this order: Canada 22.2%, U.S. 16.2%, Thailand 15.4%, U.K. 8%, Singapore 7%, Netherlands 6%, Australia 5%, Germany 4.6%, ASia/Pacific 2.4% and Europe 1.6%. So, all I can say is: Welcome back!

LINKS:

Beyond the Mango Juice: Frustrating Days

Asian Dating Sites, part 1: Looking for love in wrong places

Asian Dating Sites, part 2: Looking in Vietnam

My get-up-and-go has got up and gone

Some of you may be familiar with the term "no replacement." Now some of you retirees will have to reach far back in your mind to the day when company revenue was squeezed (say, the recession of 1991) and you had to get your job done and another guy's when he was on vacation. Yeah, you remember now! Long hours and no extra pay, except the promise that you can take a day off in lieu. Right. You have about as much chance of getting that day off as marrying a beautiful/handsome  national lottery winner or getting the entire winter off. 

These days, corporate revenue is being squeezed even more and yours truly has had to get along with "no replacement" in our three-man team.  It used to be that we'd get in a fourth or even a fifth in the heady days of fat profits and no end of premiums and bonuses.   All that extra cash is gone and we're having to do more work when "fully" staffed and even more work when down a guy.

So now you know how I feel as I've been shirking my blog work. Just too tired to spark a match inside the cranium. When I get home, all I can think about is dinner and a nap. That takes me to 9 o'clock or so and all I want to do is read other people's blogs as long as they're not too engaging, or put another way, burn up my last few brain cells. And I've hardly even done that, preferring instead to sit front of the boob tube -- watching a good movie; no matter how desperate, I cannot bring myself to watch vacuous sit-coms and I'd have to throw myself of my balcony before I'd watch an unreality show.

I did find the time and energy to take a one-day photography course this past weekend. I nearly split a cranium with information.  I learned so much and filled in some  dreadful gaps in my knowledge. I had a great teacher, a 30-year-old Scot who's been living and working in Canada for the last few years. Very talented he is. And passionate. In a way, that may have been the best part. His intensity and knowledge lit a fire in my heart. 

And yes, the point of signing up for the intense one-day cram session was to become brave enough to get a real camera, with real lenses and take some real photos. Nothing wrong with a point-and-shoot, but I am knocked out at how much better photographs are and how much more coverage I can get with a Real Camera (tm) [said camera being a Canon Rebel T1i, which can shoot high-def movies, with Sigma 18-200mm  zoom and 35mm fixed lens, the latter one having tremendous low-light and short-range capability]. I hope to be able to raise my game in terms of blog photos.

It's been nearly two weeks since I last posted. I do have lots to write about (I keep saying that but, well, nobody believes me now, I imagine) but I do miss my time in Bangkok when I could shoot out two and sometimes three posts in a day, never mind a week. And my work conditions won't improve until mid- to late September.

Ah, good old September. Here in the north lands, that month usually has the absolute best weather. The sun is a little farther down the horizon as the earth tilts away, it's warm, breezy and the streets are teeming with life. School and university students are walking to class in their fresh fall clothes, stores and markets are loaded with goods and garden fruits and vegetables, people have returned from vacation and are revived from the past winter gulag (which, it just so happens, seems to have stuck around till July this year, which makes me really optimistic about the fall because the August weather has been hot and a bit steamy and reminiscent of LOS); the bars and restaurants and patios fill up, the weekend events are packed.It's all good.

Instead, I got another month's worth of heavy slogging before I can ratchet down to plain old slogging and watch  my vacation dates come into view.  This season I won't return until mid-December. I usually return in November. I spent six months off work last season as I was on leave. Well, I finished work on a Friday evening and was on the jet Sunday morning. I arrived in Bangkok in late September and almost kissed the Swampy floor (being careful not to stray in duty-free shops!!!). I returned to Canada in April. I can't believe that I SKIPPED WINTER. Never did that before and I, well, could get used to it. A friend suggested that this season I go later in the year and miss some of the cold and snow. So yeah, I'm into that.

Once you've experienced the thrill of six months of sun, warmth and mai penh rai, and for six glorious months did not experience ice, sleet, snow, slush, rain, boot-swallowing mud puddles, late transit services and impassable sidewalks and roads, there's no replacement.

The blogging life a can-opener for the western mind

Just last week, July 27, 2009, it was the first anniversary of the start of this blog. It's a pastime that I've come to look forward to every time I sit down to research and write. Well, maybe not every time. Sometimes I've come to the Compose page and sat here, not a single word wanting to come out of hiding.  I've often had an idea but could never get it started right. That's the story tonight here in Canada.

I started and restarted my subject and kept deleting the words because they were not coming out right. So I must do some more thinking. Eventually, the subject will flow. Tonight is not the night.  Instead, I'm sitting here writing on the first anniversary of my blog, Behind the Noodle Curtain. Funny how that happens. The words are coming smoothly and easily. Oh, if I could only do this on the subject I had in mind. Sorry, can't reveal it now but is does concern dating sites.

Last night I went back and read the first few posts leading up to my six-month tour of Southeast Asia beginning in fall, 2008. Man, there was a statement or two that just made me cringe. For example, I of course became enamoured of the famous Thai smile from previous trips (and this hurts to read this again knowing more of the truth of the matter): 

Coming from Toronto, you forget what an honest smile looks like. Now, when I go back to the big grey city, and actually see someone smile openly and without affectation and expectation, I think there is some hope there.

I've learned there are many types of smiles in Thailand, each with its very specific meaning. But I do not wish to belittle the Land of Smiles because they are infectious and unmatchable when the "meaning" is right.

Writing a blog helps you enormously to remember things. When I went into the streets of Bangkok, I paid attention, looking for things to write about. I took pictures and I remembered conversations, conditions and situations. Then when I returned home, I often sat down immediately to write. The act of writing also became a pleasure as well an an anchor for my daily existence.

So blog I must. It is also so much fun to meet other bloggers online and exchange messages. Sometimes I think the only people reading our blogs are ourselves. But what the heck, it's really enjoyable to read about other bloggers' lives and benefit from their experiences. And some blogs are just plain enjoyable and satisfying to read.

Last, I noticed many have advertising links on their sites. I was really in no rush to add such things to my blog site. First, I hardly know anything about these instruments and how to fit them in to the template. So right there, I see a new learning experience on the horizon. Second, I didn't feel I had the weight of readership, although my July page views have popped over the magic (in my mind) 1,000 for the month and growing. So I suppose I'll soon sprinkle some of those simple ads eventually. Maybe soon.

But really, I'm most glad to just network with other bloggers and the kind readers who have sent me comments and encouragement. Now, I just wish I didn't have to work in the real world and could live in Southeast Asia. Now, would be good!

Siam Rick

Advertising vs. editorial: What would Stickman do?

There's one issue concerning Stickman that I've been having trouble with for some time. That  is, how close Stickman may/may not be  to the advertising on his very popular Thailand site.  The issue is one of the relationship between the functions of advertising and editorial. In my view, there is one incontrovertible fact: The two are necessarily separate.

If an issue comes up in story research and it concerns a regular advertiser, what will the web site operator do? Will he suppress the news? Will he dance around the issue? Will he leave out details that he knows will affect his reporting of an issue? Will he turn out a piece on the subject that totally ignores the issue, such as this scenario.

Imagine you are writing on the environmental practices of a small successful factory, focusing on reduction of resource usage. On the surface, it appears to be doing all it can to recycle, reuse and reduce resource usage. But as you focus on resource usage, other things crop up and show the company is letting things slip on recycling. Yes, your story is about usage. Would you merrily go on to write the piece and turn your head when an employee tips you that the company has buried some of its problems?

A related issue is one where the web site operator is planning to write on a subject and subsequently thinks that it might attract advertising.  What would he do? Well, the answer is found in the practices of big news companies. When a multi-story subject is in the works, the advertising department will know ahead of time when it's to be published and will try to sell the idea to ad space buyers.  A savvy small-time web site operator would do the same. But the small time operator, wears both hats and the big-time operator has completely separate advertising and editorial departments. The small time operator could creatively tailor  a single feature to the advertiser's need. That's a danger in the dual-hat setup. But what can you do when you're a one-person operator?

I've recently gone back to reading Stickman, or more to the point, to see where the site sits in terms of my expectations. I got some good impressions, as I said before. Stick is putting his full effort into the site and it feels better and fresher. Then I read the recent article on fetishism. Actually, I only started reading it but fell out of it because I just don't give a you-know-what about the subject. So I scrolled down to his bar news updates and at the bottom of the weekly column is a banner ad for a fetishist web site. Hmmm. Cue, red flags!

Maybe other Stickman readers noticed, too. Between the June 21 column, Spicing it Up, the Bangkok Fetish Experience," and the July 5 column, Stick must have felt the sting of questions and needed to explain a thing or two to readers. At the bottom of his July 5 weekly column he devotes a few hundred words to reader complaints that he ". . . used this column to enrich myself.  That is of course complete bollocks."

Well, I had to go back and read the fetishist/BDSM column. He mentions three clubs, two in BKK and one in Pattaya, then he goes to have a look at one club's service, Bar Bar in Patpong. He does a straightforward report of his experience and research on others, providing a balanced view of services and comes away with a good impression of the places as "clean, safe and professionally run." Period. Actually, I have to admit my reaction to the article's intentions and good balance was fairly positive.

The following weekend, interestingly enough, he wrote in Once Sweet Girls how bars and prostitution ruin people, both providers and customers, and issues a warning. He makes himself pretty clear where he's coming from when he says:

"Every week I try and bring you all the latest bar news, where to get the best deal to where the prettiest girls are.  Now I'm going to turn it all on its head and tell you that the bar scene can be bad news.  If you have any sort of addictive personality or are unable to keep it in perspective you should consider avoiding it.  No, I'm not kidding.  It could ruin your life and it could contribute to harming these women's lives too."

Here's a fellow keeping readers up to date on naughty night life  but warns them of the pitfalls, namely  the  potential to ruin  their lives and those of the women who work in it. That's an admirable balance.  Bangkok and the rest of Thailand are wonderful places to visit and rich with experiences that only these places can provide. But there can be a price to be paid and he doesn't curtain that off. He sees the pitfalls and damage that can accrue and lays out warnings through his fair and balanced column.

Could you really ask for anything more? I'll continue to read Stick and I'll watch for any backtracking, as you should because, the man wears  two hats, advertising and editorial. I don't really care if the manager of Secrets, one of Stick's favourite bars and one he's mentioned numerous times, buys him a beer.  But I'm encouraged to believe  that if he's standing somewhere between principle and selfishness, he'll side with principle and write fair and balanced reports and recommendations. 

But, as they always say in LOS, up to you.

NB: I do not know Stickman and never met him or any of his friends. He appears to be following me  on Twitter but I'm not 100% sure it's really him.

ชอบ ชอบ (chowp chowp) -- a new sidebar about stuff I like like

[Update: rewordings, change of format*]

I recently published a short piece on a fantastic reader submission to Stickman Bangkok by regular contributor Mega (nickname). I wrote: "I think any newbies to Thailand MUST read this report and maybe, maybe, save yourself some heartaches and vast amounts of money." I just read another by the same author (which portrays the catiness and face building/testing between Thai wives and girlfriends in an apartment complex) and was going to link to it here when I had one of those light bulb  moments (please let me appreciate this moment since I get so few of them . . .): why not create a new sidebar linking to stories I've enjoyed because I  found it enlightening,  heart-warming, or especially because it pokes at a hornet's nest.

This way it'll conserve electrons (yeah right . . .) in the posting space and preserve the links in a proper and compact space where I can get at them quckly should I need an inspiring read. Or some such. (Ooooh what's that sound? Hmmm, I think that's my BS Detector.)

Anyway, I've kept the link items short, partly because I think this will become a long list -- there are so many well informed, well written blogs on Thailand. If you want to find out the source of and more about  the item, just hover your cursor over the link!

I'll try to add some of my previously enjoyed blog posts over the next few days. Right now it's Saturday night in Canada, almost midnight and I haven't even had a beer yet. The things I do . . .

(Note: if you haven't activated the Thai language for your browser (it works for Firefox and Safari; don't ask me about IE), then the Thai word for "like" will look something like ~*^#@ or worse. )

*I decided the way I listed the items, by simply lisitng the blog's name, was hardly very informative or enticing.  So I've gone with a come-on headline so now you can get the gist of it, without hovering the cursor over the Link. But there is more info if you do the hover thing. Ahhh, the beauty of electronic publishing . . .

Upcoming posts on Behind the Noodle Curtain

I've got so many posts to catch up on. Coming up in the next few hours and days are: tour of Pra Kanong district of Bangkok, Thong Lor district (where I live), pictures of Buriram and Surin towns,  more  motorcycle models available in Thailand, signs with funny and incomprehensible English translations, and some thoughts on winding down my time in Southeast Asia (which means mostly Thailand). I hope I can get most of this done.

A few worthy blogs and web sites on Thailand

In the six or so months I've been writing my blog on travelling Southeast Asia, two things (at least) have happened: I seemed to have got stuck in Thailand (I really must tell my travel "agent" about this!) and I've come across a handful of really good blogs on all things Thai  and cultural issues. You can see some links in the righthand sidebar: Favourite Asian sites. Here's a very, very short list and a few quick notes about them:

A poster at Thaivisa.com today pointed out Thai-blogs.com as a good source of info and background, implying it was thorough, well written and consistently good. I have to agree after perusing a number of posts by blog operators Richard Barrow and Stephen Cleary. There are articles on Thai cooking, barely known travel destinations (there are 76 provinces in Thailand, BTW), school teaching (one author  took up teaching English here 15 years ago and stayed, never meaning to do either), Thai movies, tips for dating a Thai girl and other imponderables of Thai culture, and hundreds more. The pair are obviously good observers of their hosts and also provide some great, at times intimate, photos of the subjects at hand. I'll be revisiting this blog.

Mythaigirl.com is a blog by Andrew Hicks, whose name does not appear in his blog bio but does in a post at surinfarang.com about his website, a pitch to support a school children lunch program and his book, My Thai Girl and I. Very personal stories  mix with posts of photo stories about villages and personalities. They are long entries but interesting from beginning to end.

There are a multitude of blogs and web sites featuring Thailand. I don't think I'd have the time to plumb them all. An interesting media blog, The Bangkok Bugle, is very informative, focusing on news publications from Thailand and around the world and how they cover subjects in the Kingdom, with bonus critical commentary. The blog also has a great links section.

An overall source of good information is thaivisa.com. It has a huge number of sub-forums for many topics (news, Southeast Asia, gays and lesbians, women living in Thailand, motoring, etc.) and regions of the country. Its specialty though is visa info, with several expert members providing uptodate info on regulatory changes as well as personal advice. Visa issues are big in Thailand, which seem to change day to day and border point to border point and embassy to embassy. You could almost call it an industry.

There are many ex-pat online forums for various provinces, especially Isaan or northeastern Thailand where many ex-pats call home. Some of them are: Korat, Surin, Udon Thani, Khon Kaen and many more.  They are more local in that the members exchange info on local services, whether someone is looking for a good plumber, architect or place to by thumb tacks. You won't know how valuable the info on those forums are util you need buy a replacement filter for your imported big-bore Japanese motorcycle.

Also check out Best Asia Blogs for a list of Thai-focused blogs.

New service captures weblog updates and drives traffic

A few days ago, I saw in my stats report the URL alphainventions.com. Was surprised there were a number of accesses to my meagre site via the URL. A day or two later, I clicked on the URL and visited this site, which seemed to host blogs. I learned later that it somehow posts bloggers' site updates. Its turnover is mere seconds. So, I didn't get how it works. But I did get an upsurge in the number of passersby to my site on Southeast Asia. Others posting in the comments section of alphainventions.com claim big upticks in site visits.

The creator claims to have provided a conduit for blog updates. Me, I don't know anything about how this sort of thing might work, benefit bloggers, benefit alphainventions.com, benefit the community. But I have to say that my site numbers have doubled and the alphainventions.com link has been far more helpful than  Google, Feedburner or any other blog propagator.

In related activity, I included my site's URL in my sig files on a number of forums I'm on and that has been a big help, too, to drive traffic my way.

Simple works better, it seems. But I think the jury is still out on alpha.

So check it out yourself