The New Look Daily Lukey

Welcome to the new look Daily Lukey! It thought it was about time that I changed the design of this blog so I decided that in the new year I would release the new look Daily Lukey. I really hope that you enjoy the new layout and below you will find a guide to where everything is!

This is the home page that you will be greeted with as you arrive at my blog. As you can see, there is a drop down menu at the top right of this page. You can access this drop-down menu by moving your mouse over the area. This allows you to choose some different ways of viewing the blog. Each of them is interesting in their own right and I suggest you have a play around to find the setting you have always wanted but never knew existed. Some of them also make it easier to find old posts that you can not remember the title of (making it hard to look up in the archives). However, in the top right corner you will also find a search box. Simply click on the box and type in what you want to search. Then touch 'enter' on the keyboard and away you go! You will also find all the old links to places like Facebook, Instagram and Xavier's Blog on the top bar as well, just next to the drop-down menu. If you look over to the middle-top-right part of the picture you will also see a black rectangle hovering on the side of the page. Simply highlight your cursor over any part of it and any of the following will appear;

This top button allows you to "+1" this blog on Google Plus

The next button allows you to view the top ten most-viewed posts on Daily Lukey

This allows you to watch YouTube videos without needing to leave my blog

This allows you to choose a language to translate the blog into. This way you can share a post in any language!

This allows you to access the blog archive

For all of these, all you need to do is click on the icon and you can access its feature.

You will also notice the new feature which allows you to "like" and "tweet" out your post at the click of a button! The "+1" feature to share on Google Plus is also still available as you can see. To add a comment, simply highlight your cursor over the bottom of the post and the "add a comment" section will appear. Just click on that and type in your comment!

Take some time to explore the new look Daily Lukey. See you tomorrow!

Random Thought Saturday: Thinking Ahead

Again, I bring you another Random Post Friday on a Saturday. That means that I have done more Random Thought Fridays on a Saturday than I have on a Friday. As such I had to change the name of the segment to Random Thought Saturday as it is more realistic that I can get these regular posts out on a Saturday as compared to a Friday. Anyway, onto the inaugural Random Thought Saturday! As you will know I recently missed two days in one week (very weird considering that over all I have only missed maybe 4 days (excluding the few days right at the start of this Blog where I was getting into the swing of things)) due to scheduling woes and late nights that went later than expected. Anyway, I would just like to say that every time this happens I feel bad about it as my blog is called "Daily Lukey" so I can not just get away with missing days every so often. I promise to work harder on this to prevent this from happening again but I can not make any promises that it will not happen again as it most likely will. In other news, I was surprised to realise that this is the 247th Post on this Blog. Seeing how far I had come made me think about where I was going and, as such, I got thinking about my one year anniversary which will be on March 24 2014. As part of this I began thinking of how I was going to celebrate it and make it special. Some ideas have already been drafted but you will have to wait until next year to find out what I am planning.

Source: https://museuminsider.co.uk/2011/11/10/feature/looking-and-thinking-ahead-libraries/

Thinking ahead another month and I will be in Papua New Guinea. This will, of course, mean no internet (how will I survive?) but it does not mean no posts. I will be scheduling posts to appear while I am away (16th to 25th of April 2014) and I have kind of an idea as to what I should write about but I also have to plan it out. After those dates there will probably still be a few days after where the posts will most likely focus on my experience. This may be a day-per-post or maybe one or two depending on what happens but I am planning to fill you all in on my experience when I return. If you have anything that you want to know about the journey, feel free to send them in via the contact form to the right, send it through my Facebook Page, comment below or email me directly at legolukeytutorials@gmail.com. Your question very well may be a part of one of my posts, if not the whole post (depending on the breadth of answer I can give). They will most likely be my experience of preparing for Kokoda and what the program has been like for me and how I got to where I am at that time. Basically the last half of April and most likely the beginning of May is all going to be about Kokoda and things in relation to it, so get ready for that! I may even give you all a little lesson in the history and significance of the place if I have space. Those posts will most likely be written sometime in March and April so they should be relevant and up-to-date. Thinking a little bit back from that point but still in the future, let us discuss Christmas and New Years. Since December (and Summer for Australia) begins tomorrow one of the main things on the majority of people's minds is Christmas and the new year. Today, after I returned from my training and boot-fitting for Kokoda, I helped my parents set up our Christmas decorations because Mum loves having them up before December because she really gets into the mood of Christmas for pretty much the whole month (it can take the remainder of December after Christmas for Mum to cool off from the buzz of the occasion). It is great though because it is a family tradition and what is family without a few traditions?

Sometimes we must look into the future to really appreciate our past. See you tomorrow.

Weird News Tuesday: What?

So we are back again to this day, Tuesday. I know you guys were expecting a post yesterday and, believe you me, so was I. However, scheduling again messed me up so instead I am doing another Weird News Tuesday post. I really do not know what is going on with my Random Thought Friday posts because each week, for whatever reasons, my Fridays get busy (or I forget) but you can always rely on the Weird News Tuesday: Keeping you up to date with the news that matters. Today I will be using the news site: The Daily Telegraph (Australian). We begin with the infamous Lara Bingle with a story I have seen on every news site I have visited tonight. Apparently, the weekly magazine Famous published a photo of her where they allegedly photo shopped more "Cellulite" onto her thighs. Yes, you read that right. They added more "cellulite", not fat, "cellulite". What do they stand to gain by saying cellulite instead of fat? It saves ink (and a few milliseconds). Also, in major news (according to every news site I have been on), the death of Brian Griffin from Family Guy has left fans all over the world reeling. Apparently this is news. Do not get me wrong though, I love Family Guy so I am dedicating this post to Brian Griffin (1999-2013). May he rest in animated peace.

Source: www.unrealfacts.com

In other 'news', a woman (Lucy Cavendish) gives an insight into what it is like living as a 'white' witch. I mean 'white' as in good, not talking about skin colour here. Her book 'Spellbound' gives an insight into how her spells work and how to incorporate witchcraft into everyday life. A man's life was saved after his old boss accidentally butt dialed him. The boss was actually plotting how to kill this man and if he had not have butt dialed him. First, why was that guy's number the one that pops up first. Was his name "Aardvark" or was his number "1111111" or "2148701273"? Seriously, how does that even happen. I have heard of drunk-dialing someone but this is reaching all new heights. A London woman has hatched an 'Ingenious"  plan to get a date with Ryan Gosling or someone similar. Basically she puts up "Lost" posters all around the place with Ryan Gosling's photo on it with her number underneath. Talk about new ways of picking up people. Apparently now there is a legitimate occupation where you go around to different toilets all around the world and use them to find the best toilet in the world. So that is a thing now. Also, an unlucky burglar got stuck in the bathroom window of a house he was trying to break into. When the victim came home the burglar actually had to ask him to call the police. If it were me, I would have waited an hour or so to let him sweat it out (Payback is a bitch and bitch is my middle name). Kids these days bring all sorts of things to show-and-tell. On the list you have toys, books, magazines, parents' "Vibrating Rocket Ship", teddy bears among other things. I could make a really bad pun about rocket ships and Uranus but I will not, I am above that (for now). A group (I do not know which one [there are so many out there these days]) has banned the consumption of soy because they believe it can turn you gay. Yeah, of all the ridiculous theories I have heard that has got to be up there as one of the most ridiculous. The worst part is that someone obviously believes this. Finally, family's had to rush from their homes in Brazil after a fire at a sugar warehouse released a flood of caramel that threatened the surrounding houses. That would have been quite the sticky situation.

The news just keeps getting weirder and weirder. See you tomorrow!

Awkward Moments with Others

So you know how people have those awkward moments? For some this is when someone calls you by name and says "hello" but you cannot remember theirs so all you can say is "hi" right on back. For others it is when they forget something important like someone's birthday or celebration. However, for me one of the major sources of awkwardness is when people say they read my blog. Can we just stop for a second and consider the gravity of this situation? I mean, as soon as someone says something like that my mind starts running at a hundred miles an hour. It seriously goes into overdrive with all these possibilities opening in my mind.

Source: http://www.boscoanthony.com/social-awkwardness/

I mean, what post did they start reading from? How were they introduced to my blog? I then pray to God (and I am not a very religious person by the way) with all my might that they did not start off on one of my weird ones and went into one that was more of a gentle introduction into the wonder that is "Daily Lukey". Yep, I just went there. I mean like right now. All the people reading this who have ever told me they read my blog are probably feeling really guilty by now. Yeah, feel that guilt. Are your observations funny anymore? Seriously though guys, I do not really care it just worries me about what you must think of me. Seriously, have you read some of the stuff I write on this? I mean, it is almost as bad as when people tell me they watch my YouTube videos. I made the smart decision recently to privatise every video other than my tutorial videos. So now, I am happy if you watch my Channel as they are not so embarrassing. I like my tutorial videos rather than my other ones (mainly because only my voice are in them). I still get people coming up to me (jokingly of course) telling me to make a tutorial on something (like how to play Dodgeball or, as many have put it, "be a Lukey"). Yeah, did you just read that? You can be a "Lukey" now! I also have a lot of people asking me how I come up with the topics. The truth is, as I have said many times, most of the time I have no idea what I am talking about until right near the very end. Sometimes I am amazed I even get an introduction done, yet alone a whole post!

Do not be afraid to come up to me to tell me you read my blog! See you tomorrow!

Do You Remember When?

So it is pretty late right now as I only just got home from being out with the family. On the way home I was watching YouTube and reminiscing about things in the past that people born more recently would have no idea about. I was also trying to find a quick post to write as I am very tired and my thinking processes at the moment are not what they once were.

Do you remember when Sabrina used to be on television? It still is now but it has lost its popularity and they are all reruns.

Do you remember Daria, the animated MTV television show? I have the DVD at home and whenever I watch it I keep thinking back to when I was younger and I would watch it on ABC. At least I think it was ABC, I do not really know.

Do you remember when Fireman Sam used to be made using stop-motion animation and not this fancy 3D stuff they use now? I used to love watching Fireman Sam.

Do you remember when " 'sup?" used to be something cool? Neither can I.

Do you remember when chips used to come in those clear plastic bags within the bigger bag and you used to get more value for money?

Do you remember in Primary School how you would think the smaller year-levels were shrinking when really you were growing? This sadly took me a while to work out.

Do you remember when movies used to say "3D in select cinemas" instead of the current "2D in select cinemas"? I can still remember when going to see a 3D movie was one of the coolest things you could do.

Do you remember a time when there were no smartphones and flip-phones were the latest craze?

Do you remember Gameboy Colour and Gameboy Advance? I still have mine actually and the games still work.

Do you remember how everyone's DS Lites used to break really quickly? Why was mine the only one that never broke? Did I keep good care of it or something?

Do you remember when this Blog finished in a meaningful way? I sometimes believe I can but then I wake up. See you tomorrow!

No Politics Today

So today I decided I would give you all a break from the 'boring' world of politics as it is often referred to as being. Of course, as I may have demonstrated through some of the political parties Australia has to offer, this is not true for all of politics. Such an assumption would be absurd and tantamount to stereotyping. Actually, it is stereotyping. Not all Politics is boring obviously political parties like the Australian Sex Party and the Coke and Bubblers Party contradict this statement. Also, have you seen parliament? It is like a court-room drama with one side fighting against the other and constant bickering. You may have realised that today's post is only a short one and that is, of course, because Thursday nights are a bit of a busy time for me and sometimes I am able to pre-write long posts and times where I have tests and essays coming up I do not have time to do all this. You guys are actually pretty lucky I still manage to reach my daily post quota at times. So yeah, I thought I would give you all a break from Politics today (see that 'smooth' transition back on topic) and so the series will continue in two days and I am pretty sure we are already past half-way through the parties so there should really only be two or three more. Hope you guys enjoy the rest of your week, it's Friday tomorrow!

Can't wait for Friday, see you tomorrow!

#BloggerProblems

As this is the 152nd post on this blog (I know, can you believe it?) I have encountered a number of recurring issues regarding daily blogging. I guessed that today was about time I shared some of these. Before I continue I just have to say that what I am writing about is not from just recently and some have been problems since the very beginning. So do not fall under the impression that daily blogging is easy. At times it can seem so, even to the blogger, but it is only afterwards that you realise how much time you spend each night just writing a post. Let alone finding inspiration, thinking about what you are going to write and sharing it out via Twitter and Facebook. So let's get started with Blogger Problems!

Source: http://socialmediamagic.com/blog/tag/blog-interaction/

The first major blogger problem is finding inspiration. I know I say this a lot but good inspiration is sometimes not so easy to find. Sometimes I write posts about events that took place a long time before I actually posted about it. Often if I have something to write about and come across some more inspiration then I will save that extra inspiration for a time where I have none. For instance, at the moment I have a number of post ideas ready to go should the need arise. This comes especially handy when I need to schedule posts if I am going to be absent but still, it is so hard when I have a long spell of a boring life. This boring life of mine does ruin my blog-writing from time to time. Repetition is also a big problem with Blogging. You know that post I wrote earlier this week about Repetition? I wrote the whole introduction for that post about competition. Then I realised that I had already written a post about competition so I continued the post as if I had already known that. Yeah, if you did not pick that up then well I have nothing to say to you because it was a really bad cover up, even for me. Another blogger issue is time constraints. I am going to let you in on a little secret that everyone should know by now. The posts that come out late at night without any pictures and much context are done on my phone. This is mainly because during the day I am too busy with homework and all the other stuff I have going on so yeah, that is a big issue for many bloggers. 

Life as a blogger is not always an easy one, see you tomorrow!

Tired

So there was meant to be a normal post tonight but since I was out with Family I had pre-written a post and scheduled it for release at around 6pm. However, I get home and find that somehow I have messed up the dates and scheduled it for release next Wednesday. So I will see what I can do with that post such that it might come out tomorrow or another time. Tonight though I am just too tired to have to worry about that so that is why today's post is just a paragraph. If there was ever a post I wrote about Daily Blogger  Problems this would be one. That actually sounds like a good topic so expect to see that sometime soon. I'll have to finish this post now as I can feel myself starting to fall asleep.

Getting enough sleep is very important for your overall wellbeing, see you tomorrow.

50 Posts

If you didn't know this is the 50th Post on this blog and so today I just wanted to look back on some of my old posts as well as share some statistics along the way. This blog started on the 24th March 2013 (Sunday) and the first post was an introduction. I never expected my Blog to get this many views already and as I went to get the link for the first post I became the 1500th view. This is pretty cool because I expected I would get pretty low views around the teens if I was lucky and that it would take me 6 months before I could even think about making 1500 views. It only actually took until the 3rd of May when I hit 1000 views. This was just over a month since I started and I couldn't believe it. So today's post is for all my readers and thank you so much for coming back.

When I first started this blog I was lucky to get 10 views a day but now I get an average of 45 (talk about a rise). The highest amount of views I ever got in one day was 74 and that was also the day that I got over the 1000 views mark. The good thing about my views is that I never get below 40 a day anymore which is quite an achievement and which also means that I must get some people who read my blog regularly (not necessarily daily) and to those people I say thank you. If it wasn't for this I don't know how long I could have stayed motivated to write daily posts. I did miss a few days at the start of April because I was away but now I have mastered the scheduling tool which means that if I am busy or unable to write a post on a certain day I can write one in advance and schedule it for release on that day. I have done this numerous times recently and it really does help me keep this Daily Blog Daily.

Sometimes I wonder how I manage to keep writing my daily posts sometimes when my workload gets very high (which it does). Some of my friends have even asked me this question. The truth is I don't actually know how I manage it. I made a commitment when I made this blog that I would write regularly in it and I've tried to stick to this commitment as much as I can. By now it has become just a part of my daily routine. Get home from school, do homework, have dinner, finish homework, write blog post, relax, get ready for bed, go to sleep. It just seems normal to me now that I don't really think about it as a chore, I just sort of thing about as something I have to do every night and find time for it. I don't even know how I come up with some of these topics I discuss. It generally comes from something that happened during the day. For instance, yesterday I discussed books because in the morning we had an author (Michael Pryor) come in to talk to us at Assembly. Sometimes I don't even think about what I'm going to write until I start and then it takes a few goes to find a topic I can actually make a post about. Sometimes I write a few introductions before I find the topic I am going to discuss. So I don't know how I keep up this blog, but I do and that is partly due to the motivation my viewers provide (in the form of views).

That's all for today and I really want to thank you all for viewing my blog and reading my posts. It really does mean a lot to me, especially when someone comments. I really enjoy that interaction with the readers.

For the 50th time: May the odds be ever in your favour, see you tomorrow!

Scheduling

Hey guys, just a quick update to tell you all that I have discovered the wonders of scheduling posts on Blogger! Yay! This means that I won't have any excuse not to post on a certain day because I can write a post before hand and then schedule it to come out on the day I won't be able to post. Of course, this also means that you guys will know I have gotten lazy if a post does not appear. However, this may also be to some unexpected circumstance (i.e. Family Illness) that prevented me from posting on that day.

Is it bad that I wanted to write "Y'all" above? I've been watching too many Americans on YouTube, especially Ellen (Degeneres) she always says "Y'all". Anwyay, aside from the "Y'all"s I just wanted to say that I had discovered the wonders that scheduling brings. So, you may have realised if you "liked" my page on Facebook or are a friend of my personal Facebook account that a recent post about Google Plus which I scheduled to be released. Here is a photo below of what it looked like in my Posts section of my Blogger Acount for Daily Lukey, sorry for the bad quality, it's a screen snapshot using the Snipper Tool.

The only problem with scheduling is it uses a different Time Zone but it tells you what time it thinks it is currently so from there I work out the time and date I want it released. So yeah, now I can use the scheduling feature of the Blogger and there will be less days I will miss out on, yay!

May the odds be ever in your favour, goodbye!

Essays, Tests, Assignments and Revenge

SO MUCH WORK! The thought on most of my classmates minds this week. It is a busy week, even though it is the last of Term 1. Today (Monday) we had to write a Text Response Essay on Bali Rai's "City of Ghosts" which was simple enough, quite an easy way to start the week.

So luckily there was only a quiet start to the week. However, we have a Science Assignment due on Wednesday, a Unit 1 Maths Methods SAC on Matrices on Thursday, a Linear Algebra normal Maths test also on Thursday and a Health and Physical Education Nutrition Assignment due on Thursday. So there really is a lot of stuff going on this week which should hopefully finish in quiet holidays as we won't have a class to start anything new! Here's hoping. Anyway, I understand why they give us all this stuff and why it is due before the holidays and all the rest but I just think it is a bit annoying that we can't enjoy the last week of Term 1 instead of working so hard! Anyway, there are 3 more terms so here's hoping they are quieter, though they most likely won't be.

Also, is it just me or is REVENGE amazingly addictive? I am just so addicted to it and I have been so since the first episode was aired in Australia last year. Now in its second season I can't believe how addicting and intriguing it still is. The writers are amazing because there are so many layers and foreshadowing. Not to mention all the TWISTS AND TURNS! If you don't know what Revenge is, who are you? Research it immediately! Tonight's episode is a new one (well to Australia anyway) in Season 2 where Victoria Grayson's Mother comes to town, things are bound to get interesting! CAN'T WAIT! I love Revenge! The actors and writers are so good and you should really check it out!

May the odds be ever in your favour, see you tomorrow!