I almost always forget October 20. Eight years ago today I published my first blog entry. From that day on, I’ve been blogging and recording my thoughts and my life in general. Most of my entries back then are, obviously, not up right now. They’re tucked somewhere in the internet, and I’d rather not re-read through them because they’re utterly embarrassing. One day–actually, yesterday–I randomly clicked one entry for 2001 and to my surprise I was talking about my conservative Catholic ideals and my dislike for the what I called the hedonistic lifestyle of my high school classmates. Ha ha ha ha! It’s disgusting. I even mentioned names. Diary kung diary.

Blogging started off a lot of significant things for me. It would take me some time to make an exhaustive list, which I unfortunately don’t have much of at the moment. Needless to say, it was through my blog that I got to know a lot of people, moreso the other way around. Blogging definitely played a big part in my life. It played not just a passive role on being a medium where my I recorded my transformation from a being conservative and naive high school freshman in Ateneo to the opinionated law student that I am now in UP, and all else in between, but an active role in getting me into where I am right now.

Here’s to more years of blogging for me! In four years I would have been blogging for half of my life, would you imagine.

Tags: anniversary, blogging

This is less than two days from now, but I hope I could encourage some of you to participate in this endeavor.

On October 15, Wednesday, we in Bloggers Kapihan invite Filipino bloggers to participate in Blog Action Day 2008 by taking a stand on poverty.

Poverty is a reality that we cannot deny. We see it everyday. Many live with and in it 24/7. The imperative now is to change this situation. The Blog Action Day 2008 is an opportunity to get poverty out from under the rug where the government has consigned it. We hope that through this renewed focus on poverty, it will be a new start to better understand and not hide it, to offer real solutions not fake ones, to salve the poor people’s wounds and not give them dole-outs. If you want to join Blog Action Day 2008, there are a number of things you can do. Read on.

Tags: Bloggers' Kapihan, blogging, poverty

Friends,

To those who read my blog, visit it regularly, or whatever, and think I deserve the a Bloggers’ Choice Award, do vote for Bikoy.net at the Philippine Blog Awards.

1. On your blog (at Multiply, BlogSpot, Wordpress, wherever it is), tell us why you voted for the nominee (that’s me, Bikoy.net!)

2. Submit your post URL and some basic info to the Philippine Blog Awards committee using this form. Make sure that you provide the COMPLETE URL of the post you created for your vote to be valid.

3. Once you have submitted your vote post URL, wait for the confirmation from one of our committee members. Please be patient, we will manually go through each and every vote post to make sure it’s valid.

It’s that simple. You also get a chance to win a Nokia N82!

Thanks! Ha ha. This is such a popularity contest. It really isn’t a big deal, as I’ve largely ignored it the past days, but since apparently some people did vote for me, I might as well put some effort into it and campaign to solicit some votes so that the first ones don’t go to waste. I’d appreciate it.

Last December 29, my website just suddenly became inaccessible, and for the past two days, anybody who tried to access it, ended up in an error page. At first I was dumbfounded. True, my web host sent an advisory about a scheduled downtime due to some server migration, but that was supposed to be today, December 30. Perhaps it was one day early, I thought. However, their advisory said it would take at most 24 hours. By tonight, it had been almost two days. I was honestly getting really impatient and pissed. Not that it should really matter, it’s not as if there’s much to lose financially for me. This blog doesn’t even generate a dollar a day from paid advertising.

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When I revealed to my friends, and more importantly when it was revealed to other people in school, that I joined a fraternity and the Upsilon Sigma Phi at that, I was met with surprise. I’d be surprised at myself too, if I didn’t know myself better. Foremost, the fratman stereotype is quite out of my character, me being a timid and shy boy from Mass Comm at that, and second, my political affiliations and those of the fraternity’s and a majority of its resident brods are ‘officially’ incongruent. Upsilon is, after all, a founding member of my university political party’s two present rival parties. This proved quite odd for me, especially during the student council elections (where I lost).

Despite all these minor contradictions, and all the difficulties (understatement) of being a neophyte and a junior fellow, I don’t regret joining, and I am proud to be an Upsilonian. Anyway, my reasons for joining and other such apologetics won’t be the topic of this entry.

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The list of finalists for the 2007 Philippine Blog Awards are out. I have been aware that I was included in “shortlist” (which is actually a long one) of official entries in the Personal Blog category, but I never gave it much thought until Benj Espina informed me in one of his comments that Bikoy.net was chosen as a finalist in the Personal Blogs category!

Other finalists in the Personal Blogs category are LastLeaf.org, Fight Pompe, Jessica Rules The Universe, and Misteryosa.

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Over this Christmas break, I’ve also been watching numerous films off my computer. And because I have quite a handful of time to spare, I decided to put up a new blog for my movie commentaries, instead of piling them all up in an entry category within this blog. I’ve only done a handful the past days, however.

I also placed a pseudo-disclaimer at the blog. I don’t claim to be a professional film critic nor a film academic, so, I don’t claim to write fair objective reviews. I also have many biases. Though I employ a linear rating scale, I do not judge films from different countries with the same mindset. I always take to consideration how, when, with what budget the movie was produced, among other contextual considerations. My comments on certain movies can also be dependent on the types of movies I’ve seen beforehand, or the perceptions I have of certain elements within the film. It can also be dependent on how much I like or dislike an actor or a genre. In other words, my movie commentaries blog can be very subjective. And I don’t want fangirls or fanboys flaming me for ‘bad’ reviews. Or professional critics picking on my commentaries. Hehe.

Anyway, I’ll try to catch a few Metro Manila Film Festival movies tomorrow and get to comment on them.