If this is your first time to visit my blog, you’d naturally be curious about the blog owner and this blog. To get straight to the point, read this interview by Mao Hermitanio , Her Life as a Blogger. Next question is “which entry should I read first?”. For first time visitors, it’s a great idea to list down interesting blog entries. In any blog, posts with the most comments, trackbacks or technorati and other links are said to be the popular ones but what about search engine queries? Let me list down all the interesting posts which others found entertaining, titillating or gave some sort of value and knowledge.

Most Number of Queries from Search Engines

  • Sex Education in the Philippines
  • When Kids Hear Their Parents Having Sex
  • boybastos.com:Everything is Political and It all Begins with Sex
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    My husband and I watched the sequel to the hit movie Kasal, Kasali, Kasalo called Sakal, Sakali, Saklolo which stars Judy Ann Santos and Ryan Agoncillo. It is also the official entry of Star Cinema for [tag]Metro Manila Film Festival[/tag] (2007). I wanted to watch it for the simple pleasure of having a good laugh. I particularly enjoyed the character played by Gina Pareño, mother of Angie (Judy Ann). Gina is just so adorable and funny whenever she spews out her no-nonsense philosophy of life and other wisecracks.

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    A few days ago, Lauren announced that her interview appeared in the December 2007 issue of Cosmopolitan Magazine, Philippine Edition.

    I cringed Ugh. Don’t tell me it’s about dating escapades? My voice raised a notch higher than usual. Most of Cosmo articles I read in the beauty salon revolve around dating and sex lives with a mishmash of fashion makeovers and token articles. Not that I am a prude, but uh please, sex escapades on cheating boyfriends/girlfriends or one-night stands are best kept private. Is that something to be proud of? Anyway, I digress.

    “No mom, it’s about my blog”.

    I heaved a sigh of relief. Not that I was doubting Lauren’s integrity but I didn’t have much faith in Cosmopolitan’s ability to churn out relevant self-help articles for young adult women.

    The feature article, Why More Women Blog, is perfect timing for Lauren’s 11th year in blogging. I believe it is one of Cosmo’s token feature article to tone down the sex-life-themed magazine.

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    cristiano barbazzaI always like to discover the person behind a family business. Who are the people running it? What makes it tick? What sustained the family business to continue on? I had the opportunity to chat with the charming and amiable Cristiano Barbazza the global president of Rudy Project and son of Rudy, the founder over dinner at the Podium. The little I know of Rudy project is that my darling husband wears this famous Italian Technically Cool Eyewear whenever he drives out on a sunny day. Another tidbit is that it’s also expensive but definitley high quality eyewear. Lastly, Rudy Project rings a bell because they often sponsor athletes. Not much is written behind the people of the Rudy Project.

    Munching his pizza (strange to order pizza outside Italy), I was fascinated that as a 17 year old boy he started helping out with his dad’s business even after school days. More than money itself, he is passionate over developing technological advances in eyewear and sports gear every year. Money just follows. I believe it’s good business policy to develop the best product and the income will just come along with it.

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    christmas shoppingChristmas shopping is never complete without a visit to Divisoria to buy wholesale prices on Christmas wrappers, ribbons, and christmas decors. The sights and sounds are quite an experience. I also love the bargains on gift items especially bought on wholessale prices. This time around, my husband wasn’t too comfortable with me shopping alone after that earring robbery in Divisoria. I still went anyway. I left Lauren at 168 Mall to choose some trendy tops because bringing her along with me will just add to the maddening crowd.

    Draping a messenger bag on my body, cellphone in my pants’ pocket, and a camera positioned on my cheek, I traversed the streets of Divisoria.

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    When it comes to local showbiz scenes and Who’s Who?, I am totally clueless. Local Filipino movies just don’t interest me at all…unless I get invited by a friend or I know the people involved in the production. There is the movie The White Lady which we watched only because the director was Butch’s classmate in Law School. Then the last movie I watched was I’ve Fallen For You directed by Lino Cayetano because he is a family friend. This afternoon was a bit different. Together with some bloggers, I attended a grand press conference for Batanes, a love story co-directed by Dave Hukon and internationally acclaimed young indie-director Adolf Alix Jr. Written by Arah Badayos, the film is a love story between a Filipina and a Taiwanese and circles around how the waters of Batanes test their love and individualities.

    batanes_movie.jpgThe film stars Ken Zhu of the Taiwanese boy band F-4 fame and Iza Calzado. At the press conference, I felt really out of place amidst the showbiz reporters. Haha, I was laughing at myself as I embarked on this latest adventure as it is so out of character. But wait, I attended the Press Conference as my way of helping promote Batanes Islands. The fastest route to Batanes is through Asian Spirit which is the only airline that flies to Batanes and other remote islands in the Philippines. [tag]Asian Spirit[/tag] is also the major sponsor of Batanes which is really nice gesture on their part to support an indie film.

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    The great thing about blogger meet-ups is the fact that I am usually the oldest in the group.
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    Mingling with young bloggers means that I get to babble endlessly about techie topics which I can never really discuss with my husband or non-blogger friends. Oh I talk with my daughters but I seem to know more about computer gadgets and other tech topics than they do. Last night, Shai Coggins, co-founder of B5 Media took time off from her vacation to the Philippines for a meet and greet in Kape Isla at Serendra. Shai was one of the first bloggers that I often visited when I launched this blog. In fact, I lovingly stole her Tell Me About You idea which paved the way for me to explore other blog topics other than grief education. Meeting Shai and other blogger friends in the cozy cafe covered a lot of activities like ranting about Google’s Page Rank Penalty, the Trillanes Revolt , the curfew, Monetizing Blogs, raving over the B5 media Schwags, Shai’s personalized prints and Sasha’s fashion loot. But aside from the company of Shai Coggins and the bloggers, the other limelight of the party was this cute little thing…

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    filipina
    What a timely theme for this week’s Photo Hunt, RED. It’s my favorite color of the Holiday Season. That’s Lauren, my daughter showing off her RED wordpress t-shirt. I am raffling off three red shirts for those who have FilipinaImages.com linked entries. Your old Filipina themed entries will do as long as you link them to FilipinaImages.com. I am giving away three shirts and the deadline is December 5. If you haven’t joined yet, sign up here.

    For some of you who feel left out of the red wordpress shirt, here’s another red photo of Lady, my daughter’s pet cat.

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    butch shopping
    Yesterday I talked about my gadget shopping spree where I dragged my husband who apparently got bored and tired after walking around for four hours. All that geek-talk made him dizzy. When it was his turn to get his own shopping fix, he brought me to Ikea (Singapore). But my shopping spirt appears to have gone on a nosedive. I wasn’t interested. For the past year, I postponed gadget shopping in lieu of home improvements for our new home. I thought it was a waste of money to buy stuff in Ikea since a huge chunk of our savings went into furnishing our new home. We have all we need, anyway. How could I stop him from oogling over the low-priced goodies? Butch loves home furnishings, buying for the kitchen and grocery shopping. I am into tech stuff and making house repairs. Funny, how we have diverse interests!

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    dollarsNormally, I just let my dollar earnings sit in the bank because I am lazy to visit the bank and have them converted to pesos. Banks also have silly rules on dollar withdrawals. Anyway, the good side on all this is I am able to save for a rainy day. However, the strong peso got me thinking. I started to convert my dollars on “what could have been” at the old exchange rate and the current rates. I refuse to think of “what could have beens” because I should be grateful that I am still liquid. After reading Abe Olandres’ Weakening Dollar hurts Probloggers, I started to think that maybe I need to spend a little more.

    That’s a net loss of Php13.13 for every dollar that I have in the bank. That loss closely amounts to a brand new car or a down payment for a house and lot.

    Ugh, I did lose a lot on the conversion.

    So what did I do? Oh yeah, I went on a mad shopping spree for Christmas presents.

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