Christmas get-together

It's the 1st of December! And what do most people think about when it's the last month of the year? Christmas parties! I'm sure we've all got a few lined up already by now. But what of the bloggers' Christmas party in Davao?

Well, we won't have a full-blown party this time. But, we're going to have a year-end get-together somehwere. Just a gathering of like-minded individuals, somewhere in the city. More on that later!

If you have any ideas, please feel free to leave your comments / suggestions here.

Of I.T. blogs

A new blog just got off the drawing board: ICT Davao (pretty misleading as it makes you think it's the website of the umbrella organization of Davao's I.T. associations...). This one's about information & communications technology in general. By the looks of it, the 4 or so current posts are just reposts or quoted content from other sources. I had hoped it would provide a more refreshing view of the city's I.T. industry.

Other tech blogs in the mix, to name a few, are: EricZoo, Convergent Perspectives, Alleba Blog, Davao Graphic Designer Forum, Davao Technopreneurship, Tech.MoroBlog, ubuntu living, ragingmon.com, Buddy Blogs, and of course, IT talks!.

Quite a comeback

Mindanao Bloggers Summit participant from Cotabato, Richard Diongson, had his Google account hijacked recently. He couldn't access his Gmail nor his Blogger accounts. What a drag!!

But he didn't let this get him down. Now he has a brand new blog, still named Pulse Circle, but now running on WordPress and hosted by Winston of Batang Yagit. Check it out!

Blog on, Chad!

More new blogs

Andrew and Ria's cousin, Gwing Cabreira, now has her own blog. And the name's so witty, too: Bloggwing. Check it out!

The Usual Suspects group also now has its own site and cool domain: www.theusualsuspects.mobi. It's where the group discusses and presents future blogging-related activities for Davao and beyond.

Mam Bebs gets an online presence

Mam Bebs Bakeshop, whose delectable pastries we gave away to the speakers of the 1st Mindanao Bloggers Summit last 27 October 2007 as our tokens of appreciation, just got its own blog site: http://mambebs.blogspot.com. Check it out!

Speaking of new sites, I'm also going to do one for Swiss Deli, which was also a sponsor of MBS1. (They gave us tons of food for the bloggers' party!) To make it easy on myself -- and on the deli owners when they start updating their content -- I'm going to use WordPress. More on that later!

Hmmm... It seems more and more food establishments in Davao are getting their own websites and blogs. Good! More links for bloggers! :P

Blog Tees for all

One of The Usual Suspects, Dom Cimafranca, has a line of t-shirts that was a hit during the 1st Mindanao Bloggers Summit. Take a look at these intriguing designs:

Click here to view more of these blog tees! Currently, they're selling for Php150.00 each. Hopefully, Dom will install a payment gateway, so that bloggers anywhere can order too. I got myself that "My PageRank is higher!" shirt... and the following day one of my blogs dropped one point. Oh well, it's just a number. (Yeah right! hehehe)

Davao Blogspace favico

Thanks to Jehzeel Laurente for the new favorite-icon of the Davao Blogspace!! Jehz has done quite a number of pro bono work for both the Blogspace and Mindanao Bloggers.

The favico is based on the logo design for the Blogspace by Eric Su.

By the way, Jehz and his partner in crime, Winston Almendras, have come up with a cool new blog: PRC Board Exam Results. It is a portal for all professional exams' results, with subscription services for timely reception of results, either by email or SMS. I'm proud to say that I am now a part of this worthy project.

MBS1 Photos

The most active members of The Usual Suspects (from right): Jun (Paradise Philippines), Andrew, Dom, Blogie, Migs and Ria. Gwing (leftmost) was one of the MBS1 volunteers and a potential member of T.U.S. Kim was there too -- she gave a talk on niche blogging, and she took charge of the registration. Too bad she had to leave before the group photo!



Here are some more photos of the very successful MBS1, courtesy of Tope Cubos:


And these are from Christian Te:


A gigantic THANK YOU to our Sponsors:

• Councilor Peter T. Laviña


• Join the DigitalFilipino.com Club!


• Dimsum Diner


• Swiss Deli


• Globe Broadband


• ACT for Peace Programme


• NoKiAHOST.COM P5/day webhosting


• Bitstop Networks


• Paradise Philippines


• BisayaBloggers.com


• Davao's Food Huntress


• Web Design Philippines


• Orange County Real Estate


• Web Developer Philippines


• Fwendz Diner


• Motorcycle Davao


• Artcom Printing Services


• Cubepixels Design Studio


• Eric Clark Su


• Lane Systems


• Casa Leticia - a boutique business hotel


• Mam Bebs Bakeshop


• Snap Graphic & Sign


• Ecotrans Car Rentals

Judge not lest ye be judged.

Now, that's one catchy blog title.

On to the content then.

What's all the ruckus about the Desperate Housewives racial slur or with The daily show calling the former president a slut, come on, she's been called worse before. These shows are meant to be funny guys... who hasnt laughed at at one point or another when watching either show? Who hasnt laughed at stereotyped races before? Who here has not made fun of any minority? Who here has not laughed when our local comedians do stupid impressions of other people / races / personalities. People, people, people... these are COMEDY shows, they're funny... o well some people just never get it, or they just take things too literally I guess.

Back to my rather long rant... Dont deny it, there ARE sub-par medical schools (and facilities) here in the Philippines. I know of people that refuse to be treated at some of the lesser equipped medical facilities here, and yet, they get offended by that slur on D.H. Come on people... stop being so onion-skinned and face the truth, the Philippines isnt perfect. If we are being made fun of by other people, then it's because of our own doing. Are the Filipinos Perfect? far from it Im sorry to say...

Plus, when all of this is said and done... Im willing to bet some parts of my anatomy that the same people that got "outraged" by the Desperate Housewives slur... will probably buy pirated copies of that show from their friendly neighborhood pirates.

On another note... How come we dont see the heads of state of other countries (plus their citizens) go apeshit when our more "reputable" periodicals portray their leaders or their citizens as evil beings/creatures/-insert nasty description here-. Why? because maybe, just maybe, that they know that these things cant really hurt them.

If you want to make sure that slurs like the one on DH dont happen? maybe you can start with yourself, make you that you dont do it first. We dont live in a perfect world and everyone deserves to get shot at once in a while, and in our case, we have a -lot- of things that we deserve to get shot with.

Bloggers and travel agents together

After some juggling of dates due to the busy schedules of both groups, I was finally able to bring some bloggers and Davao travel agents together for an informal powwow. Five travel agency owners and managers attended, as well as five bloggers including myself. We got together yesterday at Coffee SPOT, whose owner generously sponsored our refreshments. Thanks Rhea!

This was the first of a series of gatherings I've been cooking up for bloggers and other groups. The objecive is two-fold: for more people to appreciate blogs and blogging; and for bloggers to be able to connect with people directly involved in the things that the former write about.

Yesterday was all about the travel and tourism industry. Since some of us blog about places to see in Davao, what better way to get fresh insights and more material than to talk to travel professionals?

The travel agents were clearly eager to know more about the world of blogs. So much so that they've invited me to conduct a blogging workshop for their group, the Davao Association of Tour Operators (DATO). And thanks to that get-together, they've come to realize how powerful bloggers' voices can be. Now they're starting to see that blogs are an effective way to promote their products, namely, tours and travel destinations.

The bloggers, on the other hand, now have access to travel consultants; ergo, now they have sources for richer and broader content for their blogs. For example, Ria Jose of MyDavaoCity.com has been invited to join a major tour to be conducted by DATO this week. The Association is expecting 100+ visitors and will run a special tour of Davao and Samal Island this weekend. And Ria will surely be able to get tons of bloggable material from that -- stuff she might not be able to do on her own.


The travel agents who met up with us were: Alex Divinagracia (Global Wings Travel); Edmund "Mon" Mayormita (Travel Advantage Tours); Ruben Neri (Surelite Travel & Tours); Dizon Namuag (Dizerlin Travel & Tours, based in Panabo); and, Pia Partoza-Montaño (Par Travel & Tours).

The bloggers: Andrew, Blogie, Christian, Dom and Ria.

I'll be coming up with more of these meet-ups real soon. Potential target groups include: hoteliers, restaurateurs, and real estate brokers. Watch out for that!

[Photo courtesy of Christian Te]