It’s the last day of my 20s. I’m turning the page tomorrow and being all grown up now. It feels weird, like all the other milestones you have to go through. Going from primary to secondary school, finishing secondary school and going to college, turning 18, 21, 24, finishing college and starting work, moving to Australia…

When you look back they seem small and insignificant, but at the time, it’s like the biggest thing ever, and you don’t know what the future holds. I’m feeling the same again right now.

My life has never been better and I feel like I’m in a good space. I’m now working full-time at a great creative agency, producing good work and earning a decent paycheck, which has lifted the constant and stress of working freelance. Sure, it does get stressful at work with some tight deadlines, but at least I can just focus on my work and not be juggling a million things in my head.

Many of my friends are already getting married, and while my closest friends haven’t had kids yet, but I’m sure it’s gonna start happening soon. It is weird how friendships and relationships evolve and change as circumstances change.

I know 30 is just a number and tomorrow I’ll wake up feeling no different — I’ll still be the very same person I am today, yet there’s a sort of line that is being crossed. Getting older. Ticking a different ‘age bracket’ box in forms. Becoming an adult and having to ‘act your age’. Being sensible and pragmatic. Making big decisions about where I’m going in life.

It’s all irrational, really, all these worries and anxieties. But I just can’t help it…

You always read about young hotshot 20-somethings setting up successful Web 2.0 companies and selling out for millions. What have I achieved before hitting 30? Well, I’ve moved to different country and settled myself down here, established new social and professional networks over here in Melbourne. I’ve worked for myself and made a living doing freelance and contract web design and development work. Got headhunted for a couple of jobs and eventually placed at Sputnik Agency where I am now. I also finally did a bit of traveling and went to the UK, Germany, Netherlands and the UAE for the first time, something I’d been thinking and talking about for a long time. My friends tell me that’s all admirable achievements and some don’t even get to do that, so i guess it’s all relative. I’m thankful for all the opportunities I’ve had and being where I am. Still doesn’t help with the uncertainty of the future though!

2007 was a bit of a rough year with more than average low points but it ended on a good note for me, and 2008 has been good so far, so I’m optimistic. Being 30 will be exciting so bring it on!

Just had dinner with Chris last night. It’s been such a long time since I’d had a proper catch up with him, even though he’s been back in Melbourne for quite a while now, and we see each other every once in a while but with other people and environments where it’s not very conducive to conversation. It was a nice dinner at Mecca Bah in Docklands and so we pretty much talked about life, the universe and everything.

Things have been so busy and moving so fast lately that I’ve realised how bad I am at keeping in touch with my friends, and I really miss them, the old gang from Ipoh with one in Manchester and another in Singapore… you know who you are! Also my college friends whom most of them are still in KL, where we shared some great times together and enjoyed those long, deep discussions late at night at the mamak stall or Coffee Bean.

It’s the Queens Birthday long weekend and I’ve been really looking forward to some time out for a quite a while now. I’ll be going with a few friends down to Wilson’s Prom for some quiet R&R away from the city. The house we’ve booked is even off the grid, being completely solar-powered. Talk about isolated! It would be great to go for walks in the country or just chilling out reading a book or watching a dvd. We’ll be leaving tonight after work, so we’d have the most of the 3 days we’re there.

As I was telling Chris last night, I’ve just been completely slacking in the blogging front as it just takes some effort to write something meaningful, and I’ve just not been able find the time to do that. Despite that, I think I’m gonna have to make some time for it and start posting regularly again.

I’ve also been playing around with Twitter for a few months now, barring it’s sporadic downtime, it’s been quite an interesting paradigm in the blogging space, almost like a cross between IM and blogging. Being able to send a SMS to Twitter also makes it even easier to post to than setting up a moblog which I’ve tried before. My Twitter ID/profile page is http://twitter.com/jonathanpoh if you want to keep up with what I’m up to.

Web designers are under-represented and ‘hidden’ under the guise of various job titles, according to Zeldman.

If you’re a web designer or work on anything related to the web, regardless of your job title, take the survey and be heard.

Inspired by Chris DiClerico’s Toy Dubai photo, I followed the same tutorial and made this fake tilt-shift photo of the Melbourne skyline taken a couple of weeks ago.

The tilt-shift effect makes the photo look like it was taken of a miniature model of the city. I’d seen this done before some months ago but never looked into finding out how it is done until now. It’s actually pretty simple!

Mint 2.0 is out! Looks really pretty and I’m tempted to upgrade…

Yes, yesterday was my birthday. Another year older, and my final year of my 20s. Hmm, that sounds a bit scary.

I overslept and only woke up at 10am which is quite unusual for me. I left making any plans for a party too late and so I sent out a mass email invitation to everyone I know in Melbourne for drinks at the Belgian Beer Garden on Saturday 29th Jan. It would be the Australia Day long weekend and I’ve already gotten some responses that people will be away or have other things on. Oh well. The perils of leaving it so late. I hope the weather will be good then.

The rest of the day was pretty uneventful. Got a few birthday emails and SMSes. Simon took me out for dinner last night at Sails on the Bay which was a very nice restaurant by the beach in Elwood. It had spectacular bay windows that you can watch the sunset while dining. Food was nice, though the portions were a bit small. Typical fine dining style. The desert I had, the Blackcurrant Delice was just absolutely yummy though.

After dinner we walked along the beach and there were unusually many people out and about, and many of them with cameras and tripods. It then occurred to me that they were probably trying to catch a glimpse of the comet McNaught that’s been sighted around here. Shame it was a bit cloudy last night. We hung around for a bit but didn’t see anything and just went back home.

On a totally unrelated note, Wordpress 2.1 came out yesterday, and today 24 Jan is the 23rd birthday of the Apple Macintosh.

Happy New Year everyone! 2007 started a little rocky for this site when I forgot to renew the domain and for a day or so, jonathapoh.com was showing a generic domain parking page. To make matters worse, my registrar was rejecting my debit card which I had been using all this while with them. Seems the problem wasn’t with the card itself but the fact that the domain had expired thus couldn’t be ‘renewed’ but had to be ‘reactivated’. Some technical difference between the two. Anyway, I got it back now and everything is fine again. Or so I thought.

My brother Tristan mentioned last night that the comments form on my site wasn’t working. No wonder nobody was commenting on my blog anymore! I was feeling a bit distraught that all my readers have disappeared with my long absence from blogging. It seems when I moved the site to Media Temple, I also took the opportunity to upgrade Movable Type to the latest version, and I had forgotten that I renamed the comments script file to something else in effort to curb comment spam (didn’t really work). The fresh install of MT was looking for this renamed file which obviously doesn’t exist in the default installation. I’ve fixed this now and comments are now working again.

As for stuff happening offline, New Years Eve was nice. I went to a friend’s house party in Hawthorn. It was a very pleasant and chilled out evening. Weather was perfect and we sat outside in the garden with some drinks and good company. It was a nice way to usher in the new year away from the heaving crowds in the city that night. A stark contrast to last year in Sydney.

I’ve been spending way too much time playing Zelda on the Wii this last few days. Getting really engrossed in it. I’m slowly weaning myself back into work mode again and getting a few outstanding things done.