Brain Contour

I am watching right now an episode on the Travel Channel entitled “Dining with Death: Plants and Nuts.” It features poisonous plants and nuts being consumed in countries like Japan, Papua New Guinea and the Philippines. The part about the Philippines was shot in Batangas where the deadly hyacinth bean or called the Philippine “Bataw” thrive.

I really never thought that Bataw is full of toxins due to the presence of cyanogenic glucoside, a compound that produces cyanide. I had tasted this deadly hyacinth bean before during a trip to the north and it tasted really good.

Have you ever thought how many web domains there are in the world? According to the recent report from VeriSign, the third quarter of 2010 closed with a base of more than 201.8 million domain name registrations!

The largest Top Level Domains (TLDs) in terms of base size are, in order, .com, .de (Germany), .net, .uk (United Kingdom), .org, .info, .cn, .nl (Netherlands), .eu (European Union) and .ru (Russian Federation).

The year 2010 was not happy all the time. But that should not be the reason not to hope for happiness in 2011.

I would like to borrow the words of Edith Lovejoy Pierce, “We will open the book. Its pages are blank. We are going to put words on them ourselves. The book is called “Opportunity” and its first chapter is New Year’s Day.”

Someone posted a threat on my blog, which I consider very serious. Based on the IP address, it came from the Philippines. I am now contacting friends and other authorities to trace the IP location for proper action.

This may be a joke to whoever posted this, but not to me.

Note: I am keeping few previous posts hidden until this issue of a possible killer be resolved. More will be posted soon.

Update 1: More info about the IP address has now been collected. Thanks for all those who help.

A winter weather advisory is in effect until 6 pm today. I looked outside from the terrace and heavy snow is falling. According to the forecast, 5 to 7 inches of snow will be likely from around Brookings area. There is no wind gust. Based on previous experiences, taking the wind factor effect out, it won’t be freezing cold to walk from home to the office.

It is Monday morning. A 10-minute walk from home to Wecota Hall is the best alternative since my car is too powerless for the snow-filled streets. Filled. No more humps. Street gutters are unrecognizable. No more yellow lines. Everything is white that you tend to lose the concept of colors. Apart from the endless snowfall, my morning hike to work will be a breeze — nothing will ever stop me from traversing on foot and singing in the snow. Geared for the battle, I put on my ever-enduring coat that have lasted many worse winters, including my ninja headgear outfit that I sometimes find ridiculous efficient. Ridiculous since it really makes me look like a fighting ninja. Efficient since nothing compares at how it makes my head so warm.

The doctors said there was no hope for recovery because of too many complications. For three days in the ICU, daddy was fighting for his life under all the hoses connected to him. Manoy Wingwing, my older brother who watched him all day and night, had witnessed how daddy suffered in a very dire condition.

With teary eyes, each stare my father gave to Manoy felt like a plea to end his life. Unable to articulate his pain, he looked as if trying to beg to cut his life support so he could finally rest — right then. That was the time Manoy made a long distance call from Chung Hua Hospital in Cebu to South Dakota, US.

The first time I answered the question “How addicted to blogging are you?”, I ended up getting a high score of 87%. That was three years ago and I was only a year-old blogger. Recently, I answered the same question and to my surprise, the score was even much higher.

Look at my score:

Are you addicted to blogging as well? Try it by clicking the image above.

Blog traffic is Money. Traffic is the key to getting profit. The more traffic you get, the more chances you let customers see your products. In other words, you endorse and offer information about your product to people who get to click your site. With more clicks, you succeed faster. Admit it, traffic is the key to online business.

A traffic exchange program, that is being offered by so many websites right now, applies this basic idea: View other member’s websites and they will view yours. It is classified in two, automatic and manual.