There are a few blogs that I stalk. Some I found through other bloggers' links, and some I come across randomly. Snazzykat's blog was one that I stumbled upon randomly, found it to my liking, and visit on and off. Today I found a post that was not too unsimilar to one of mine (written just three days ago, on Saturday, the 14th). Somebody evidently stole her blog design, word for word, script by script, and had the nerve to not leave any sort of credit! When it happened to me, I was outraged! I was very displeased, and I lashed out on my blog (where it is appropriate). But when that person apologized and deleted promptly the blog in question, I felt, kind of, that I over-reacted. He was evidently a newcomer to freely designable blogs (may Korean blogs/websites have a rigid template that they have to use). He didn't know much, and he was interested in learning.

I remember a time when I was the same guppy, trying to feebly grasp some html knowledge. I am not boasting that I know all, or even that I am at an intermediate level. There were times I used other people's templates, because I just didn't know better. I didn't know how. But I learned. So when I thought about myself and how I was at that time, I came to feel a bit sorry for the accused/convicted. I even wrote a brief note, apologizing that I was so passionate with my language (see below, written in Korean). I went to his Korean blog and saw that he was just a regular human being, not the scar-faced thief that I had imagined.

Of course I could be wrong. And I was! This person, after deleting the blogspot address where he copied and pasted my blog, went to another, namely, the previously mentioned Snazzykat's blog, and copied and pasted hers. Only with hers, he did a better job, because he switched the photos and most of the links, and got his own tag board, while with mine, he even copied and pasted the exact wordings of my blog entries as well. But nevertheless it was an exact replica of Snazzykat's blog, and I just cannot believe that this creep just went ahead and did the exact same thing? Stealing a loaf of bread, because your family's starving is one thing. Stealing a blog design is completely different. You were caught once. Why do it again? The same crime?

There are plenty of blog templates at blogskins.com. I go there frequently for inspirations, because it helps me think outside the box, as well as inside it too. You don't want the birth of your new blog to be received in such hostility. Do the right thing, please.