Sorry for spoiling your Sunday appetite

“Blue­berry Hotcakes…PAGE28… …Mr Miyagi blogs in the toi­let… PAGE 2″

Fluffy blue­berry hot­cakes together with fluffy story about how blogs are deadly in yesterday’s Sun­day Times, where Xiaxue, Cow­boy Caleb, Kenny Sia and myself were inter­viewed via email.

Dear Ben­jamin,

I’m Mun San from ST Life!. Sorry to bother, but I’m doing a story on how blog­ging affects the lives and health of local blog­gers. This is a follow-up to a recent story on how two tech blog­gers in the States died sud­denly (http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/06/technology/06sweat.html?ref=us). Won­der if you could help me with the story?

Yes, I can.

I’m send­ing my ques­tions first, hope you don’t mind.

No I don’t.

- When did you start blogging?

2 April 2004

- How many posts do you write a month?

Between 15 and 30.

- What is the most num­ber of posts you’ve ever writ­ten in a day?

4.

- What is the cra­zi­est thing you’ve done in the name of blogging?

Accept­ing a con­dom adver­tiser and a year’s sup­ply (by the con­dom company’s esti­mates) of free condoms.

- Do you find your­self hav­ing the urge to blog at the strangest places and times? eg do you blog while hav­ing meals, dur­ing con­certs, in the toi­let etc?

Dur­ing meals, on an air­plane (when they had wire­less broad­band), and espe­cially in the toi­let. I was once asked not to take pho­tographs in the Drama Cen­tre. I carry a cam­era almost every­where and I felt almost dis­abled when I wasn’t allowed to bring my cam­era phone into reservist in-camp until my unit autho­rised me to be the offi­cial blogger-photographer.

- How often do you check your blog to see if there are new comments?

Thrice a day.

- It is reported that many blog­gers suf­fer from weight loss/gain, insom­nia etc. Has your health been affected in sim­i­lar ways?

Dete­ri­o­rat­ing eye­sight, but I think that has more to do with age.

- Do you feel the stress to beat fel­low blog­gers in com­ing up with the wit­ti­est post, the fastest response to a piece of news etc?

Of course I do! I sub­scribe to sev­eral dozens of newswires on my RSS reader, and arm myself with a vari­ety of blog­ging tools so I can update my blog on the fly.

- Do you believe that blog­ging can kill? Why?

If it can almost bring down (Malaysian) gov­ern­ments, I don’t see why not. But as they say, every­thing should be done in mod­er­a­tion. I don’t sit up all night blog­ging. I some­times lie down and blog. It’s also good to have some food and a glass of water near you when you’re blog­ging, so you don’t get dehy­drated or mal­nour­ished. But drink­ing too much water can kill too, and so can overeating.

- Has your wife com­plained about your blog­ging habits?

Yes, she has. She thinks I don’t blog often enough and sifts through the news for blog­wor­thy items.