This afternoon, I was thinking of a cool way to compose a business card suited for the up and coming Davao Food Appreciation Tour. How do I connect it to food without looking desperate? Add some “bite” to it, that’s what! With some folder cardboard stock, a pair of craft scissors this is what I came up with:

Can’t believe it’s been 6 years. I can still recall quite vividly the time my friend was buzzing and begging frantically on our apartment intercom to let her in. I had no idea what was going on until I walked out on our street on 6th Avenue and saw the twin towers completely gone. There was a thick cloud of smoke that looked as if an atomic bomb had just exploded. New York City had been attacked! For the two years that I’ve been in the city, it was only a month before 9/11 that I decided to go up the towers. Good thing that I did. New York was and is still the most beautiful city in the world. It’s taught me to appreciate life, family, friends, not to mention history, the arts, culture and wow, the food. Next to where I live here in Davao City, I consider New York as my second home.

Looking forward to a reunion next year!

I <3 NY

Map illustrating how close I was to the catastrophe:
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Another meme! Fellow blogger Kim Castillo tagged me for this one and asked, “What are five revealing things about you?”. Since I don’t really have a personal blog, I’m going to do this here and try to keep it related to our theme.

1. I don’t handle stress very well. Right now, I’m having some dizzy spells. Two weeks ago, I had a nasty sore throat that required me to take some antibiotics. I guess it’s due to my sleepless nights during my programming activities that began last month. To add to the chaos, I have many other sites and responsibilities to attend to. I also need to get at least 7 hours of sleep or else I’ll be too stressed out to do anything.
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Got a nice little present from Dennis Agulo a few days ago. It’s a Google shirt!! He won it at the Women in Web talk here in Davao courtesy of Google’s Aileen Apolo. I wore it all day today although it was kind of big.

Pics after the jump.
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It’s probably karma. The Wifi pirate that I am, it’s inevitable that this should happen. Once again, my ever-unreliable PLDT MyDSL decided not to cooperate anymore. My whole neighborhood’s affected, and PLDT doesn’t know when it’ll be back up. This happened two days ago too.
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Post-Digg kudos are in order:

Angelo Racoma - For telling me what to do before things went out of hand and when they did get out of hand!

Abe Olandres - For exhausting every option possible to help me out. You da man!

RJ Palabasan - For allowing me to rant like there was no tomorrow. Brib Wariur you are! Oops, did I just steal those keywords from you?

I’m not a practicing Catholic. I don’t go to church except when I’m forced to or when it’s Christmas Eve and New Year’s Eve. So really, there’s no place for me to give a righteous reaction to the current media/Internet circus surrounding Bryanboy. He’s getting exactly what he craves for: attention. And boy did he get it, albeit unexpectedly.

Honestly, everyone is entitled to his or her opinion. Bryanboy gave his opinion when he decided to post those controversial pictures of his European friend posing beside a statue of Jesus Christ, whom he considers “his fucking homeboy”. Some name-calling ensued, touting him the next Anti-Christ, one starting an online petition that, unsurprisingly, didn’t flourish. If you ask me, I couldn’t care less. I didn’t find anything offensive about those pictures, which take note, Bryanboy isn’t in. He did say he loved Jesus, right? “Fucking homeboy”, although quite crass, was vaguely well-intended. If you browse his site long enough, this guy isn’t supposed to be taken seriously. He’s a miles away from even a fraction of newsworthiness. It’s simple. If you don’t like him, stop going to his site! By the way, how and why did Kenneth Ocampo end up there in the first place?
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Finally, I got to meet Marc and Abe in person at Jill’s (@ the Fort) where SEO Philippines’ first Beercon was held. It was perfect timing. I got home from Thailand that day October 28, refreshed and renewed after a tedious work schedule and a cold that wouldn’t go away (I’m better now). What a perfect way to cap a terrific vacation.

Google’s Country Representative, Aileen Apolo, made an interesting presentation about Google and its plans for the Philippines. Unfortunately, setting up a real brick-and-mortar office isn’t included in those plans. But who knows. But, she encouraged everyone to be GAP (Google Advertising Professional) certified and rounded up the benefits of doing so — you get recognition from Google and basically a great career ahead of you. Demand for Adwords is picking up in the Philippines so getting certified is a no-brainer if you’re a brooding SEM. Marc mentioned a while back that he wants to be the first Filipino to be certified. Hope he gets it so many others will follow suit!

Aileen is also visiting the South, particularly my city Davao! Yeah! I look forward to helping her out in her gigs here.

Pics after the jump.
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Yep, I’m in Manila again. I wrote about WiFi here not being free in most places here and that is still the case. However, just like back in Davao City, I am blogging through someone else’s WiFi. Thanks, whoever you are. Yes, you can call me a WiFi pirate. Arrrr.

Actually, I’m here because I’m going to Thailand tomorrow with my aunt and cousin. I am looking forward to using my semi-SLR Canon S3 IS to take pictures and see if there is any hope in me to excel in this craft. This is also a welcome break from all my work activities. But I have a lot of stuff to finish, namely:
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Is it just me, or did the Ateneo Blue Eagles completely suck in the last two games of the 2006 UAAP championships? Forget about my earlier post on them. The UST Tigers deserved this championship more than anyone.
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I had some fun this afternoon playing around with famous Filipino brands in Photoshop. Here’s what I ended up with:

Jollibee:

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Related Link: corporate health is important to the business that wants their staff to be productive.

They’ve opened the floodgates. I’m on Facebook now.

Personally though, I don’t think it’s a good idea.

A few days ago, September 22, 2006, I attended Janette Toral’s event “One Internet Day” held here in the city. I was about an hour late and had to leave while speaker Chris Cubos (of Fwendz.com) was doing his presentation. Shame that I wasn’t able to mingle with Janette and the others. I was particularly interested in YESpayments‘ discussion on their credit card processing services and that of InfoWeapons and their IPv6-ready products. Overall, it was a nice gathering of all those interested in the Philippine IT sector.

Pic after the jump.
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My addiction to UAAP basketball suffered a major relapse this afternoon when the Ateneo Blue Eagles won over the UST Tigers 73-72! At the last second and I mean literally ONE second, Doug Kramer nailed the winning shot with a great pass from Macky Escalona. The Tigers were in utter shock on how they could have screwed that up. There’s a few more games to go. I think we’re gonna get it this season! Go Blue Eagles!

Awesome video after the jump.
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I recently went on a buying spree on previously owned domains and found some with decent pageranks and backlinks. I’m *not* about to divulge these domains just yet! What’s funny is that one of the domains I bought used to be owned by someone pretty well-known on the Internet. I only found about it *after* the purchase. Now I feel kinda silly. Well, technically it’s mine now. I’m thinking of converting it to a political blog but with a more global scope. We’ll see.
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