Tricia's Musings

Random Thoughts about life in general, living in the big city of Toronto



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A community for families in Japan

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I’ve come across a site for English speaking families in Japan. The site is located at http://www.piqniq.jp. The site design is simple in it’s layout and seems to be very user friendly.

Families living in Tokyo or any other area of Japan can get online and talk with other English speaking people. They might start a conversation about raising children, or talk about great places to go while in Japan, even the ultimate family getaway.

The goal of the site is to create a community that English speaking families in Japan can use to help them in their day to day life within the country. It’s not always easy to make your way in a country if you don’t speak the national language so it makes sense to get online and talk with other people that are making their way just as you are. You can discuss ways to find babysitters or daycare centers, doctors or dentists, and even talk about schools and activities to do with the kids.

I can see this site being a life saver for couples who have moved to Japan to work but don’t know anyone and perhaps feel lonely and out of place is a society that is very different from the one they left behind.





Singapore Swingers hit Feverishthoughts.com – HARD

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My dear friend Mr. Fab started a campaign a few months ago to try to get more people from China to visit his site. Why I’m not really certain. I think it was just an interesting challenge for him. He really only tried on and off for a few weeks and from what he said he didn’t have that much success.

I, on the other hand, have been having lots of visitors from China. Mainly on my reptile related site but I do think I get more visitors from China on my Feverishthoughts network that Mr. Fab does right now.

Why am I writing about this? Well the other day, last Saturday I think, my husband Chris wrote a story on Odd Planet about how Swingers clubs are becoming increasingly popular in Singapore. We both thought it was an interesting story, but lets facing it, there have been a lot more interesting and funny stories on Odd Planet than the Singapore Swing story.

To our surprise, when I was checking the site stats for my small feverishthoughts network of sites I noticed a huge increase in visitor rates over at odd planet beginning on Sunday. I investigated to see what was going on and I found that over 800 searches for Singapore Sg or Singapore Swingers had brought people to Odd Planet. Monday there were about 600 similar visits. Tuesday maybe 300. So it’s slowing down, but that’s a huge increase in visits for just one simple little post.

Right now, the top search terms for all of the feverishthoughts blogs combined are:

united sg swingers 636
united sg swinger 182
sg swingers 35
sg swinger 16
united sg swingers website 13
hugh laurie snl 78
hugh laurie 14
lucious 17
maniquins 14
photo scavenger hunt 12

Now, the Singapore swing post went up on Odd Planet at about 7 am on Saturday, and the stats are for the whole month, but obviously all the swinger search stats have occurred between Saturday and 6 am Tuesday morning … so four days, there were 882 swinger searches, and even more hits between reading the post and visiting comments etc.

Why did I bring up Fabs quest for China earlier? Well, I also noticed an increase in visitors from Singapore, malaysia, Hong Kong and China – so fab if you want more visitors from China you’d better write something controversial and maybe Kinky about china and see what happens. Ok?

One other pleasing benefit of looking at my stats? The four sites that are live on Feverishthoughts.com – Tricia’s Musings, As the Garden Grows, Breath of Life and Odd Planet are getting bookmarked a lot! A full third of the visitors to these sites are adding them to their bookmarks. Thank you! You like us, you really like us!

I’ve been a poor visitor lately

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I’m sorry that I haven’t been around to visit the many sites that I usually do visit lately. I haven’t been very active in my own meme- Green Thumb Sunday, or the others that I participate in like Wordless Wednesday, Thursday Thirteen or the Saturday Photo Scavenger Hunt for a number of reasons.


I haven’t been feeling all that well over the last two or more weeks. Not that I ever feel that well but I’ve felt worse than normal and haven’t been getting out to visit my friends or the meme sites. Please forgive me? I know you guys are coming here, but perhaps some of you have dropped off a bit since I’m not returning the visits. For that I’m sorry. I just haven’t been up to it lately.

Not only have I not been feeling that great but I’ve been working on a few side projects for a friend and for myself. I will have more time to visit others when I get these projects done.

Just wanted you guys to know what’s been going on.

Save tons of $ on long distance calls

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Have you heard about Pingo International and Prepaid calling cards yet? I wish I had when we had our South Korean and Brazilian boarders here. We could have suggested that they use the Pingo calling cards to save money on their long distance calls.

If you make a lot of long distance calls to other Countries International prepaid calling cards might be just what you need. You’ll get $5 USD in free calls just for signing up. Visit the site and see for yourself how many options you have. You can use a Pingo calling card with your mobile phone, and believe it or not the rates for use with a cell phone are very good. You’ll have Pinless dialing with Pinpass which means no more inputting huge numbers into the phone before you can make your call. You can also use Pingo International and prepaid calling cards to call over 35 Countries.

You purchase calling time with your credit card and Pingo provides you with your own unique Personal Identification Number (PIN) and a toll-free access number. Then you’re ready to start using Pingo and saving on long distance calls. You can also use a service called auto-charge which will automatically refil your calling card when it reaches $5 USD. You’ll also be able to check your call history and billing online.

After having boarders here and having them tell me how much it cost them to call back home I know, that after viewing some of the rates on the Pingo site that the long distance calling rates are very low. For example, if my boarder from South Korea called home using a pingo card the calling card rates would have been as low as 2.4 cents per minute. My Brazilian boarder would have got rates as low as 2 cents per minute!

If you sign up with Pingo you can also earn some money towards your long distance calls. During the month of October you can earn $10 for each friend you refer to pingo. The normal referral rate is $5. Also, if you have a website you can sign up for Pingo’s affiliate program and earn some extra cash when someone signs up for a Pingo International and prepaid calling card.

Pingo calling cards are ideal for anyone that makes long distance calls. Go see for yourself, check the calling card rates to other countries, and view just how many countries you can call with a Pingo International calling card. I’m sure you’ll agree that there are savings to be had by using a Pingo prepaid calling card.

Two Weddings and a Hare Karishna Band?

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Thirteen Things about Random stuff in my head

1…. I think I have someone elses foot attached to my right leg. It’s alien. Really … it’s huge! It’s also blue. From the ankle down it’s about three times bigger than it’s normal size. Thank you knee injury!

2…. Speaking of my knee I still appear to have two knee caps, although the new one is bigger than the old one. Time to see the doc again and figure out what’s going on as this can’t be normal.

3…. I’m also really tired lately. Now that is weird ’cause I’m never tired. Maybe it’s because I’ve been dragging around this alien limb for almost two weeks?

4…. In other news, Chris has been busy Jamming with a band every night this week. The band is making a CD and I believe that Chris has been asked to play on it.

5…. The band is a little different. From what I can tell it’s modernized East Indian music. It has a an interesting beat – sounds like a bit of Tom Cochrane, Tragically hip and even Pink Floyd guitar chords mixed with exotic Indian instruments. Very cool.

6…. Chris got involved with this band because one of the musicians is marrying his cousin in August and he asked Chris to play with him after the ceremony. Now they’ve been jamming and it seems to be going further than just playing one gig.

7…. Speaking of the wedding- it’s actually two weddings. August 10th and August 11th.

8…. The first wedding will be a traditional East indian (Hindu) wedding held at the Hare Karishna Temple, and the second wedding the following day will be a catholic ceremony followed by a very “Irish” reception. By very Irish I mean there will be lots of alcohol involved, but the first wedding will be alcohol free.

9…. Chris actually just came home from a practice session and he tells me that after the Hindu ceremony they are going to play George Harrison’s My Sweet Lord and they will be accompanied by the Hare Karishna “House Band”. Then just before they finish My Sweet lord the Hare Karishna’s will do some of their throat chanting followed by the end chords of My sweet lord.

10…. Now doesn’t that sound cool? All those Hare Karishna in their flowing orange gowns singing My Sweet Lord and chanting. I’m going to have to get that on video, for sure. Chris is laughing. He thinks it will be very interesting but he’s picturing his very religious Aunts reaction, and then he’s picturing his ham of a brothers reaction.

11…. The weddings are on a Thursday and Friday, and that weekend we have the Taste of the Danforth here in Toronto. Mmmmm Greek food and entertainment within walking distance of my home.

12…. I’m imagining all of the photo opportunities I’m going to have in a few weeks. Four days of very interesting events that I fully plan to attend. This lump of a leg better be almost healed by then!

13…. Speaking of photos … on our trip to Ottawa last weekend I managed to take almost 200 pictures with my Nokia 6682 cell phone and my digital camera. Only two of the pics were of my Aunts 80th birthday parties, the rest were of the lovely scenery we passed while driving.

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