It ain’t over till it’s over

The election for bloggers’ choice award is on!

My gut feeling was right all along my nominees were winners! well, not quite yet. Anyway, I already revealed that I nominated three blogs for the Philippine Blog Awards, two made it to the finalist list on the main awards category. Well, glad to see that the other blog that I nominated was nominated for the 2007 Philippine Bloggers’ Choice Award… yipeee!!! I think I’m also a winner as all of my nominees made it to the elite list.

Congratulations to fruityoaty and all the other nominees of the Bloggers’ Choice Award. To Filipino bloggers around the world, you still have until the awards ceremony to vote.

As they say, it isn’t over till it’s over!

The 2007 Philippine Blog Awards FINALISTS

The list of finalists of the 2007 Philippine Blog Awards has been released. I was a bit disappointed that only two of three nominations I submitted made it to the finals–but ei! still good. Anyway, voting for the blogger’s choice awards is on this week. I think one has to choose from the finalist list??? Anyway, here’s the list of the finalist for the main awards:

Personal:

• Bikoy.net
• Fight Pompe
• Jessica Rules The Universe
• Last Leaf Designs and Chronicles
• Misteryosa

Technology:

• Digital Life by Chin Wong
• PinoyMacLovers
• JaypeeOnline
• Stellify
• Leon Kilat: The Cybercafe Experiments

Travel:

• Byahilo: Your Journey Begins Here
• Coconuter
• Ironwulf.net: En Route
• Ivan About Town
• Walk This Way

Entertainment:

• Kiven
• The Man Blog
• Pinoy Rickey
• Retzwerx
• The Rocketboy Chronicles

Home & Living:

• dessert comes first
• Finestkind Clinic and fish market
• MarketManila.com
• Our Awesome Planet
• Wifely Steps

Socio-Political:

• Far From Neutral Notions
• Philippine Commentary
• Philippines Without Borders
• Salita Blog
• Tingog.com – Voice of The Filipino

News & Media:

• blog @ AWBHoldings
• By Jove!
• Cyberbaguioboy
• Inside PCIJ
• RG CRUZ, Observer

Business & Entrepreneur:

• Jozzua
• ManuelViloria.com
• Reflections of a BizDrivenLife
• Sonnie’s Porch
• The Unlawyer

Sports & Recreation:

• Be@rbrick Love
• ChiyoDad Learns Go
• Sporting Break
• Vespinoy
• Who rides a Vespa?

Fashion & Lifestyle:

• Beautynomics.Com
• Bryanboy: Le Superstar Fabuleux
• GIBBS CADIZ
• Manila Fashion Observer
• Nostalgia Manila

Photo Blog:

• The Dubai Chronicles
• Glance Over
• Project Manila
• Senor Enrique
• The Sleepy Traveler

Podcast:

• Cuying Podcast
• Happy Slip
• The Liberal Times Manila Podcast
• Noypi.com
• OhMyGulay

Special Awards finalists are as follows:

Best Blog Design:

• Far From Neutral Notions
• Ironwulf.net: En Route
• Midori-X
• Noel Perlas – Perlas Design Studio
• Seasonal Plume

Best OFW Blog:

• Balikbayan Box
• coffee with amee
• francescanfrance
• Kwentong Tambay
• Palabok

Best Free Custom Theme:

• Blu3zin3 by Tew Reonal
• Papillon by Beng Hafner
• Psalm 8 by Joni Ang
• SimplaZEN by Jorge Cosgayon
• WoWza by Kevin Codamon

Best Plugin / Extension:

• Guestbook Generator by Andrew dela Serna
• iPap by Markku Seguerra
• Name Dropper by Andrew dela Serna
• Post Avatar by Vicky Arulsingam and Dominik Menke
• Top Posts by Category plugin by Marc Macalua

To all the finalists, congratulations! Awards night is on 31 March 2007, 5pm at Podium 4, RCBC Plaza Auditorium in Makati City.

Engtech looking for guest bloggers

Engtech, one of the most popular tech bloggers on WordPress if not the whole blogosphere, is looking for Guest Bloggers. He’s actually running a contest on it. So, if you’re one of who those who wants to have a decent spike in your stats, here’s your chance. Here’s an excerpt of his blog.

… I’ve only had one guest-blogged post so far and it did around 10,000 hits. This can be a great opportunity to reach a wider audience, and to help me out. Read more about why you should guestblog and how to be a good guestblogger at problogger.net.

Stats from the guestblogger post:

WordPress.com stats place //engtech at around 900 RSS subscribers and has between 6,000 and 9,000 page views a day. “It is a PR6 site (Technorati ranking: ~2,000) and usually does very well in search rankings, engtech further explains.

Subject matter should be able something I’d normally write about: how-tos, lifehacks, blogging, programming, development, geeky stuff… of course, I’m pretty much all over the place so it isn’t as limited as you might think.

Older posts are fine if you’re okay with having it republished here.

If you are interested then please contact me with a 3-5 sentence pitch for your post at this email address .

You will get

• a byline/bio-paragraph at the top of the post and
• a link to your blog at the beginning/ending of your post along with
• any relevant links to other posts on your blog you include in the article.

The deadline was extended until the end of this month, so you still have a few days to write those posts! Who knows you could end up having a stat for the day of over 10,000 hits! Whooa!!!

Mornings in Bangkok

If I’m lucky (or not too tired) I wake up early in the morning, go to the office and catch monks collecting offerings from Buddhist around Bangkok.

I got lucky this morning and caught one monk around our neighborhood carrying a pot for offerings. A lady rushed out of her house to greet the monk with her offering. She removes her slippers before approaching the monk. With heads bowed down, her hands joined together in prayer in front of her face, the lady prayed to the Monk.

She then offered her the offering walked backwards to retrieve her slippers and waited for the monk to go his way. It was an awesome sight.

On the way to the office, I got luckier and yes good thing I have my camera with me. I caught five to seven novice monks following an elder monk, they, too, have just completed collecting offerings around the district.

As you can see they don’t have any slippers on whenever they are doing this duty. They started early.

On an ordinary day, though, these monks have slippers on, rides the bus for free (with a dedicated seat reserved for them–so when you’re sitting on it, you are required to vacate it and give it to them regardless of your age or gender), rides the taxi (I think they pay when they ride luxurious mode of transport) and yes, they rest.

Post-shoot out dramas

There might be no comparison between Australia and the Philippines in terms of crime rate. To do so, will be like comparing apples and oranges as the usual cliche goes. However, our police do receive some training from the Australian Federal Police but when I read a news article about a shooting incident between police and criminals, I guess I felt a little proud of the training our policemen get in real life.

Slow Down

Last night, I told my wife that this was one of the best weekend–I was really rested. It was an ironic statement given that my eldest daughter got sick early this week and just as she was recovering by the end of the week, the second one followed suit. My second daughter was quite healthy so she easily shrugged off the symptoms before it became a full-blown flu but then my youngest daughter started to show some symptoms. However, they all recovered by Sunday evening–thank God.

So, our usual routine of going to the mall was skipped for this week, which I welcomed as all of us had a good rest, except for my wife who got to do her regular weekend chores. This morning as I was reading the 11 March entry of Our Daily Bread the title aptly says what I should be doing regularly–slow down.

Sometimes we take task after tasks without thinking if we can do it or not–which is true for me most of the time (blame it on wrong judgement). It was bad a bit on a professional side as I do miss deadlines (while there are legit reasons for some other delays) but the fact remains that my hands are always full. My wife longs for the day that I come home and tell her that this task is finished for today or this week–but that seldom happens.

God . . . rested on the seventh day from all His work which He had done. —Genesis 2:2

If God rested, why shouldn’t we? We’re just humans anyway. Take it easy..

Captain America (Steve Rogers), 1917–2007

Captain America felled by sniper fire. Read details here.

I used to watch the cartoon series when I was in elementary, he would definitely be missed but Superman died in 1993–well he was resurrected. So, there would definitely be a resurrection for this superhero!

Thanks Captain America! (so are you going to beat the hell out of Iraqi insurgents or the man at the White House when you return???)

Tag Game

Surprise, surprise!

I’ve been tagged! This is my first time to do this. In fact, I seldom forward emails as I’m lazy to continue chain letters, games but I think this is an exception–I think this is fun!

Courtesy of my online pal, Chuck (the famous Chuckie Dreyfus for my Filipino readers–astig ba?! ), one is obliged to blog about 10 weird things/habits or little known facts about himself/herself. Then the blogger would return the favor and tag six other bloggers, who are asked to do the same. No tagbacks are allowed however, so here it goes: 

1. Less than a year old, I was under the knife to remove a cyst at my gluteus maximus area (rightmost part though)–without any anaesthetic!   
2. I first had worked as a garbage scavenger without my parents’ knowledge during my elementary days. When I failed to report at home for a day, they filed a police blotter and reported me missing! I was a rookie scavenger then that I only earned a measly PhP15.00 (compared to the regular PhP75-100) for a whole day’s work–and to think the hardship I experienced–I got stuck in a hole in the middle of this big garbage bridge on a river.
3. I stumbled on a sharp stone during a pilgrimage to Mt. Banahaw. My knee was hurt so bad that it looked like slash wound (I was elementary then). A New People’s Army rendered first aid–I believe the man was Ka Roger if my memory serves me right.  
4. I was dragged by a calf during a carambola (well, the objective was to lasso the calf), the rope burn was so bad that it looked like a sniper’s guide albeit very, very wide guide.
5. I stopped schooling after my first year in college to serve full time in our church’s music ministry. 
6. I was one of the first church attendees in our city to be under disciplinary action (well, close to being excommunicado)–bad boy! 
7. I played Aladin in the theater play of Florante at Laura back in college. For those who knew me then, they would have laughed throughout the play as I’m as thin as Palito but younger of course. The play did well though.  
8. My ex-girlfriend, now my wife, used to tease me as bumbay as I always bring a long umbrella whenever I go to class–the rain, man, the rain!! (oh yes, also the sun)
9. Back in college, I used to drink coca cola during breakfast, lunch and dinner. 500ml each
10. Now this is not much known since I was college or since I started blogging–my first name is Domingo. I’m the third Domingo but at home they call me Jimbo. Elementary classmates call me by my first name. High school classmates call me by my last name (well, during the last two years). Close friends call me Dom’s but at home I’m known as Jimbo (given by my father) or Bo (as in bow and arrow) so, to settle that Inggo is my lolo (RIP), Jun is my father, I just introduced myself as Jim when I stepped college. So, I usually go for Jim Caro when I introduce myself.

Il est fini !

 Hope you enjoyed it?! Now, I tag (drumroll)… Massa P., Lynette, Joey, Czille, Nick and Ivy–take it away pals!

PHILIPPINES FRAUD-CASE COUPLE FIND B.C. HAVEN (The Province, 05 Mar 2007, Page A1)

This is big news in Canada, but obviously not big news in the Philippines and to think that they defrauded the Philippine Government that much money??? Is the Philippine government that stupid or there were just too many (or few powerful ones) who benefitted from this racket.

PHILIPPINES FRAUD-CASE COUPLE FIND B.C. HAVEN

The Province
05 Mar 2007

read more…Tech Tags: The Province newspaper Front Page

Read the full story here.

I’m on Blog Addicts!

My first blog confirmed a new-found passion (well, addiction with a purpose, i.e.–keep me sane in my mind-cracking activities). After a few months of blogging, with the last four months almost regularly, I’m starting to get the feel of it and starting to get friends online–and yes started to get some exposure–vane ! I’ll get on the purpose of this post as you read on, by the way, title was inspired by Cyberbaguioboy’s entry.

To business, as of this writing, my hottest post (most read post) is my post on Inquirer.net’s Radio Online. Most people got to find my blog when they searched Filipino radio, Inquirer.net Radio, Radio online among others. It got me thinking, hmm, Inquirer.net has got a few good hits from this site. Well, I think that was compensated recently. Well, my plug of recent developments in the Philippine Media especially Inquirer.net got reciprocated–I’m on Blog Addicts! The post also got some attention from cybersoc.com as having some good links in here worth exploring.

Yes, this is the second blogsite of Inquirerbloggers.net–after Joey Alarilla’s @play (I think they’ll be building this site just like Inq7.net, i.e., take-off sites for blogsites of Inquirer.net).

Inquirer.net reporter Erwin Oliva explains that Blog Addicts is a team blog on Inquirer.net. He further explained that…

Blog Addicts is a section under YOU (a youth portal on INQUIRER.net) that features bloggers.

The Inquirer.net’s blog addicts are Joey Alarilla, Jayvee Fernandez and Erwin.

Thanks to Joey for adding me in his blogroll at @play–indeed an honor!

More power to Inquirer.net and to the millions of Netizens, enjoy reading (didn’t I tell you that readers will benefit in the end from this new media development)!

Cheers!