New Activity

Wow, its almost 2009 already! Since moving to Singapore, I first struggled to get started, but I feel more relaxed and stable over the past month or so.

I finished reading the last book of Harry Potter. The series is 7 books long and took me a awhile to completely finish, but I enjoyed them a great deal, expecially the last 3 books as the story became more intense, darker, and more challenging for Harry.

I have purchased several books over the past few months on many topics from Chinese History to Economics to Brain Teasers to How to pick up girls. But I really enjoyed Harry Potter for the escapism, the magical world, the challenges and heroism.

Besides Harry Potter, I have been playing alot of basketball lately. I found a outdoor court, where people of many nationalities come to play. The level of play is in the range of my ability, not too hard, not too easy. It really has become part of my regular routine to go to the court in the evenings and play games of 3 on 3, 4 on 4, or full court with the guys. Its hard to believe, here we are in late December and I am playing outdoor basketball, sweating like a pig in shorts and a t-shirt, but that is Singapore for you, hot and humid.

I have become a huge fan of Mixed Martial Arts. I read news and watch the events over the Internet. I liked it enough I just recently started a new website at www.getpowers.com/mma to share news, videos and such.

Finally, I also added a new section to my PresidentSeek.com website for videos. I will add the debates, nomination speeches, inaugration speech, and other related videos so people can look back at all the excitement of the election and upcoming presidency. I look forward to building the site up to be 100% ready for the 2012 election.

Americans under attack

Somehow, I get the feeling America and Americans have become the some new symbol of repression. It seems people around the world hate Americans because they consider us to be arrogant, overbearing, loud, short-sighted, aggressive, and almost imperialist.

They see Americans as takers and not givers.

Recently, there were attacks on foreigners in India. The attackers wanted to find anyone who had US or British Passports. I told a friend about this, and she said, "But why the British?", which sounded to me like, Americans, oh that is understandable.

If some attacker with guns calling out Americans and British stepped up to me, I would do my best Danish impression, "I'm from Coppenhagen Denmark!" Why Denmark? Because I think few people can distinguish what a fake Danish accent sounds like.

Obviously, I don't believe America and Americans are all bad. Matter of fact, I think Americans have shown many times they are ready to step up in times of global crisis. The first to give in times of need around the world. The people you can count on when the going gets tough. Americans have done alot of good and the world takes that for granted.

How can America improve its image? How can America change the growing tide of negative attitudes towards it? A change of foreign policy is certainly in order. Does America need to have its finger in every pie? A decrease in our demand and consumption of the rest of the world's resources would be another improvement. Stop attacking places without reason or provocation would be a big step in the right direction. Help the rest of the world with medicine and technology where we are wanted without demanding a change in that country's culture and politics would make us look better. We need not bow to dictatorships and oppresive regimes, but we need to learn to show respect and genuinely try to understand other countries systems, values, cultures, and differences. Rather than demand improvement from other countries, improve our own country. Lead by example. Let others follow our lead if they so desire.

I hope these kinds of changes will improve America's image.

GetPowers.com Two Year Anniversary

I started GetPowers.com in October 2006. Previously, I had a little blog on Yahoo! GeoCities which I started in order to share pictures and stories from my stay in China, but I saw that Yahoo! kept putting their ads onto my website, partially blocking out the page and generally being annoying. I also wanted my own website, but I knew nothing about web hosting.
It was a cold Friday evening at Renmin University in October 2006 that changed my life. I was at English Corner, chatting away with some of the Chinese students. I met another foreigner there, a guy from South Africa, who was also visiting China. I asked him what he did there, and he explained to me that he was a writer and was making an income from his website. I was intriged, I had always been interested in making money on the Internet, how did he do it?

He said he didn't sell anything, simply he put ads on his website, and when people clicked on them, he could make a little money. Of course, I knew Yahoo! could make money by putting their ads on the website I made that was hosted by them. But how could I make money doing that? Would I have to find advertisers?

The South African man explained that you simply set up an account with Google's Adsense program, you get the programming code, you cut and paste it onto your website, then the ads just come up on your site. Of course the agreement with Google prohibits you from clicking on the ads on your own website, but if your vistors do, you can make a little money, and I do mean little. But with time and traffic, it adds up.

I really wanted to give it a try. I liked using the Internet, I already had my own website, so I thought lets give it a try and see what happens. I needed my own website though. I decided at first to use Yahoo! Webhosting, with a small fee, they would take off their annoying pop-up ads.
Then I had to rack my brains for a good website name. I wanted to think of something that was related to me, but unique and easy to remember. After a couple of days of brainstorming, I stumbled on "GetPowers". Like, if you want to get in touch with Mark Powers, just go to GetPowers.com! I contacted my family to ask what they thought, I wanted to make sure it was not to corny of an idea. They said it sounded alright and was easy to remember. Additionally, the domain name was still available. Nowadays its harder and harder to find website names that are not already taken. Soon, GetPowers.com was mine!

I immediately went to work. The thought of trying to make some money inspired me to try to make my online journal look better and add interesting content. Things were working great for the first 3 months, I was very pleased. I was getting lots of visitors from the US and China, and actually making money, enough to pay off the cost of the domain name and webhosting at least.
But then a series of disasters befell my website.

At the beginning of the new year, an Earthquake near Taiwan knocked out the trans-Pacific cables that linked the Internet from Asia to North America. My website was inaccessable for weeks, and even when Internet traffic was rerouted and generally restored, it seemed my website was still very slow to upload to most of the visitors in China.

Additionally, a website forum that I spent alot of time working on that started to take off was being attacked by Spam robots. These "robots" would visit my website and automatically post garbage messages onto the forum to visit their bad websites and buy their junk. I was spending more time deleting junk messages than actually writing new posts. And with the lost visitors from the earthquake disruption, I nearly gave up. It was too much trouble for too little in return.

Later, I discovered the Great Chinese Firewall of Censorship was blocking out Yahoo! servers. If any website on Yahoo! servers got blocked for having material that was illegal in China, all the websites on that server got blocked. Of course, that could be thousands or websites. Even after the Internet was restored in general, my website would often load very slowly or not at all. When I contacted Yahoo! about it, they told me about their problems with working in China. I only wish I would have know about that earlier and used another webhosting company!

In 2007 I returned to the states. I still dreamed of doing something special on the Internet, but was unsure how to do it. I forgot to mention, just before coming to the states, I was finally able to find a trustworthy webhosting company in China. The cost was reasonable, and at least, the speed and reliabilty to have a website hosted in China was comforting. So, GetPowers.net was born. A website in Chinese for Chinese people, accessable in China.

I also decided to spend the extra money and start working with a superior webhosting company in the US as well. I picked Dreamhost.com, smaller but by far better than Yahoo! but maybe a little more difficult to use than Yahoo! webhosting for beginners.

I created several webpages under the GetPowers.com name that were of interest to me. Such as alternative energy investing, determining probabilities, and funny pages.

I also picked up some ideas about different website topics that I could make like teaching English and politics. I created findenglishteacher.com and presidentseek.com. These websites are not blogs, but more like specialty topic websites. Recently, I even started a new website about foreigners in China called littlechinaworld.com.

I ended up making more money by building websites for other people or creating videos to put on websites than I ever made with web advertising. But I have not given up and I still have a few ideas up my sleave.

Change is in the air....

Here is a great news article from Yahoo! news :Iraqis have money but lack know-how in spending it What's really funny is that the problem is the Iraqi government has money, but is having trouble spending it. SO... the US Government is sending advisers over there to help them out. I can imagine many you see the irony in this.

I don't want my blog to be a political platform, so I will refrain from further elaborating, but what a problem to be in, "too much money". From the news I read nowadays, it seems there is a lot of fear out there about the direction of the economy, and rightly so.

Singapore is technically in a recession. The economic growth went backwards again in the last quarter, a whopping negative five percent! A recession is defined as two quarters of negative growth. The US looks headed in that direction. Despite Singapore having a relatively strong financial base compared to other SE Asian countries, the Singapore dollar has been weakening against the US dollar. It seems that even though the US is ground zero for the credit crunch and economic turmoil, people believe the US Dollar is still a safer place to be than currencies of small and developing nations.

Though I live in Singapore, I miss China quite a bit. To alleviate my feelings I bought a couple books on China recently. One book, called "China - Land of Emperors and Dragons" was a brief history of China from the first dynasty of a unified China (Qin Dynasty) through the present. Though I've read books on Chinese history before, the events and people are so interesting and dramatic, and the turmoil, the battles, the heroes and ladies, the fools and betrayals.... no comic book or movie could capture it all. I think that is what many western tourists are looking for when the visit China today. Glimpses of that amazing past.

I hurts me though to read the terrible role westerners played in Chinese history in the last century. From forcing the Chinese to import opium, to blackmailing the emperors, to having western armies ride roughshod into Beijing and destroying some the China's greatest palaces, and outright thievery as some westerners stole and looted Chinese historical treasures is truly shameful. It reminds me in a way of how the Europeans came to Americas and brazenly killed and removed the natives for their treasure and land.

I truly believe China was in for the same fate if they didn't stand up for themselves. I can sympathize with periods in Chinese history where they wanted the foreigners out of their country and wanted to be self-sufficient. However, history has shown that doesn't work very well.

One of my favorite lines from Chinese literature comes from the first sentences in the first paragraph in the Three Kingdoms, a Chinese masterpiece written centuries ago...

"The world under heaven, after a long period of division, tends to unite; after a long period of union, tends to divide. This has been so since antiquity."

Chinese history is the history of the rise and fall of kingdoms and dynasties in Far East Asia. I guess that citizens of the Roman Empire or the Tang Dynasty, great empires in history, could hardly imagine their civilizations would fall and new ones reborn on their ashes. It makes me wonder about the world today, are we in the midst of a great destruction of a society giving birth to new one which will take its place? Maybe not a wholesale destruction, but maybe in bits and pieces. This change seems to take place violently, if not in weapons, then in some form, maybe even money, or stocks and bonds. I watch the world with bated breath.

Lose those unwanted love handles the Singapore way!

Singapore Style Trim & Fit Plan
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Singapore's unique location in the world, near the equator and surrounded by water allow for the ideal weight loss environment. With year round heat and humidity, you'll be sweating away excess fat in no time! For maximum weight loss potential be sure to turn off your air conditioner. Better yet, just go outside and walk around the block. Once you see and feel your sweat soaked clothes, you'll know just how effective the Singapore Style Trim & Fit Plan really is!

Testimonial:
Mark Powers, originally from the US, arrived in Singapore just recently. What does he have to say?

Mark: I used to be a health nut, watching what I eat and doing exercise, but it required a lot of work and discipline. Now, I can just walk to the store and sweat off at least a pound on the way, and another two pounds back carrying the bags! Sometimes I can just sweat standing around waiting for the train or bus! Thanks Singapore!

We're so sure you'll be satisfied with your new Singapore Style Trim & Fit Plan, we will give you a new convenient Travel Towel! Take it with you wherever you go, to wipe away the pounds as they come off your body!

The Macabre Box of Short Stories - By Jason Epple - Available Now!

Interview with Jace

My best buddy from way back in 2nd grade in elementary school, Jason Epple, has authored a book! A real, 100+ pages book, ready for purchase online right now. Jason, who worked his tail off in California, first as a struggling musician, and then later as struggling student trying to get his degree in education so he could become a teacher, wrote in his extra time. I think he wrote a lot as a form of therapy, but in our difficult and darkest hours, if we let our minds go, we can unleash amazing amounts of creativity. I think that was what happened to Jason. When he wasn't substitute teaching for some of the toughest schools in the country, inner-city Los Angeles schools, or preparing for his university classes at night, he wrote stories to blow off steam. He said he couldn't tell where the inspiriation or passion for these stories came from, but he couldn't stop from writing them down. He wrote one story after another. The story topics were dark and mysterious, but thought provoking and memorable.

I had just started my website business and invited Jason to write stories that we could put online. Jason first wrote some stories for the website, but soon discovered he had enough good stories that he could put them together and publish a book. He went about copyrighting his work and finding a online publisher. Every step along the way, we talked about his progress and what to do next.

I invested in Jason's efforts and remade Jason's website to just show a couple of sample stories, introduce Jason and get people to buy the new book online. Jason had to go through numerous editings, read-throughs, get a cover design (which came out great!), while finding a way to pay for professional proof-reading and publishing services with a reputable firm. And now finally, Jason's long-awaited book is online and available for sale!! I admit, I'm so excited because I have talked with him and encouraged him to write his stories. I feel like I did play a small role in the new book's development and arrival, so I am also thrilled to see it go into the world. I have built the new website for the book and I hope you will take a look, and maybe even buy a copy!

Please visit www.macabrebox.com

Musings from Singapore....

Bollywood is the nickname for India's movie industry. Singapore's Indian TV stations play many Bollywood movies throughout the day. Since I only get a few channels on my TV, I can often catch a Bollywood show.

In Indian movies, the pace is fast, and no holds barred. No one dimensional leading men in these movies. The leading man might be telling jokes and charming a lady in one scene, then avenging a relative's death using acrobatic Indian style kong-fu on the bad guys, then start singing and dancing with 50 extras like right out of a Broadway musical. During a fight scene a wild cow is seen walking in the background. Its like what the heck is that cow doing in the picture. Totally hilarious and unique. Most of the movies are in Tamil, the common language of southern India.

I also find Singaporeans of Malaysian heritage to be very interesting. I often see young students who go to private schools, the young Muslim students (people of Malaysian heritage are commonly Muslim) wear white beanies or headdresses and light-colored uniforms. But its funny, these young cosmopolitan Singaporeans still wear bright pink Swatch watches with a giant watch faces, Channel pins to hold the headdress in place, and eat at McDonald's, which offers Halal (Arabic term meaning "permissible) hamburgers, which is food that is permissible according to Islamic law.

I was invited out by some new Singaporean friends recently to go rock climbing. We went to a practice facility near Little India (next to Farrer Park MRT station). I was ready to go a couple trips up the wall. The first problem was the largest climbing shoes the place had was a size 12, and I am easily a size 13. So I had to try climbing in my sneakers or socks.

My new friends were very friendly and showed me how to climb, use the equipment and how to be safe. After a few slow and exhaustive climbs up the wall, I found myself sore and tired. You can imagine I was already sweating buckets with only big fans to keep the place cool. But my new friends kept encouraging me, "Now its your turn". "You wanna try this one?"... And how could I refuse, I kept going and going. I think I made at least 10 or more climbs.

After the climbing and the showers, everyone went out for dinner. We walked over to a outdoor dinning place in Little India. Actually there are many outdoor dinning places in Singapore, its cooler outside. There are lots of little food shops and you pick one or more and buy what you like. Just tell the staff where you will sit and they will bring your food to you, no tips. The food here is not like what you would find in a US mall. No pizza, hamburgers, or Panda Express. You can buy fried chicken wings on a stick, stir-fry seafood and noodles, Roti Prata Indian bread and curry, and you can even try Crocodile meat!


Chatting with my new friends, which included Singaporeans of Chinese and Malay heritage, I was impressed by how accommodating they are for each others customs and religion. Its obvious they understand they have to be in order to live and play together in this cultural melting pot. I even caught my Malay friend use a "Ai-yo" a Chinese word for "Oh man" or "Oh no". I said, "Hey that's Chinese, why did you say that?" He said, "No, that's Singlish!" Singlish referring to the mix of English, Chinese, Indian, and Malay that is used by Singaporeans.