I Blog, Therefore I Am.

Since we have to downscale, minimize and micromize everything, I was not surprised when BLOGS were also simplified through micro-blogging.

So what is exactly "micro-blogging"? According to Wikipedia, micro-blogging is a form of blogging that allow users to write brief text updates (usually less than 200 characters) and publish them, either to be viewed by anyone or by a restricted group which can be chosen by the user. In other words, it's "TWITTER and the others".

Micro-blogging is probably one of the best things I like to do on-line. Twitter is usually one of the first websites I go to after log-in to feed and read updates. It's so fun to know "almost" on real-time what your friends and on-line buddies are up to. I update my micro-blogs religiously in lieu of real blog posts.

TWITTER

My first micro-blogging account is on Twitter. Twitter is the most popular among the lot. It is not unusual to see badges of "what am i doing" in people's blogs or social networking pages. I've been on Twitter for almost a year now and I've learned a lot of things through it (and not just the sosyalan kind). Just last month, I followed real-time updates of Apple's WDDC where the iPhone 3G was unveiled. I also learned about Pacquiao's recent win to Diaz by following Inquirer's Pacquiao Files in Twitter. Politicians are also using it to give updates on their campaigns like what John Edwards did before (but he abandoned it after 18 updates). There are several personalities and pop culture interest groups which give updates via Twitter. I suggest that you browse through the list for your fresh by-the-minute-update fix.



My Twitter Page

Twitter will always be my first love despite its flakiness (downtime again?). I know that there are other sites like Jaiku and Pownce who are much better but as they say...original is always the BEST! Do you have an account? Add me up HERE!

AND NOW THERE'S PLURK

Twitter might be resting on its laurels when the big, bad Plurk came. Plurk went into its "critical mass" (for the band of bloggers that is) just this June. I was twitting one June afternoon when all my twitter and blog friends could talk about was plurk this, plurk that, and "add me on Plurk". I got curious, joined and its been one helluva fun since. It's still new so there's only 200+ users to date here in the Philippines (and I'm the Top 102 user as of this moment! view it here!)

Plurk is just like Twitter and other micro-blogging sites but its more dynamic and addicting. It has a very nice timeline page where you can view and reply to your friends' updates anytime you want. It can actually be described as the new and improved Web 2.0 community chat room. One update of a friend can generate a threaded reply from one or all of his friends without creating a giant mess. It also allow users to post and share photos and videos which it automatically coverts into a thumbnail.


My Plurk Page

One of the things that's making Plurk addicting (and competitive) are the KARMA it gives to certain activities. Profile updating, inviting of friends, updating of plurks, and replying to friends' plurks will give you points. But try not updating even for just a few hours and you will see those karma points slipping.

Like Twitter, Plurk has also been a good source of information and updates for me. I learned about Ces Drillon's abduction a full 12 hours before ABS-CBN reported it because a Plurker from the South posted it. My officemates were all amazed where I got the "never-before-published" information.

Want to know and get ahead? Try Plurk! Add me up here and let us plurk-plurk together! Promise, it's FUN!

I went to the World Heritage Site of Vigan, Ilocos Sur more than a month ago with my friends Aileen, Tin, Charo and Jako. We've been planning the trip for so long so we are glad that it finally happened. The trip was was such a blast from start to finish so it will be a waste not to blog about it (albeit a month late). It is probably our best and most memorable vacation and road trip to date!

Click on the thumbnails to view the pictures!

May 15, Evening - The Adventure Begins

Our adventure started on the evening of May 15, a Thursday. We all met at the bus station of Partas Bus Lines in Pasay City. We opted to ride the bus for the ultimate non-expensive-roughing-it road trip instead of bringing a car. Tin got there first (accompanied by her, ummm, officemate), then Aileen & I arrived second (fresh from work) and the coosome-twosome otherwise known as Charo and Jako arrived last from SM Mall of Asia bearing with all kinds of snacks for our long trip.



We left Manila before 12:00 midnight after waiting for almost two hours at the terminal for our ride. We talked and gossiped about David Cook, our lovelives and Cindy Kurleto. The trip to Vigan from Manila was 9 and a half hours with a short stop-over in Pangasinan. We slept almost throughout the entire trip with the help of an ergonomic bus seat designed for long trips ala sleeper trains in Europe. We also had our individual iPods playing non-stop for us. I started with Guy's Sebastian's "Angels Brought Me Here" and ended with David Archuleta's "Think of Me". Vigan welcomed us with drizzle of rain before 9:00 am the following day.

May 16, Morning - Good Morning, Vigan!

Two tricycles brought us to the very Vigan antique "hotel" of Grandpa's Inn, our home for two days. Grandpa's Inn is located at #1 Bonifacio St. cor. Quirino Blvd., which is just a stone throw from Calle Crisologo and very near the heart of the city. We booked ourselves in one of the "Kalesa" bedrooms with extra beds to accommodate all five of us.



We immediately went out after checking-in to have some breakfast. We passed by for the first time the famous Calle Crisologo. The street is lovelier than I expected. The stretch is surrounded by old Spanish houses and cobblestones. There are also several souvenir and antique shops along the alley which I so love. Vehicles except for several kalesas are not allowed to pass to properly preserve and maintain the beauty of the place. We cannot help but take a few snaps of the calle despite the light drizzle.





Forget the famous Vigan Longganisa and other local yummies, our first Vigan meal was in McDonald's Vigan near Plaza Burgos. We arrived quite early and most of the local shops and restaurants were still closed. We had a feast over our McDo meals while we check the map and plan our day.

We went back to the hotel after breakfast to sleep and rest a bit, shower and freshen up. It was the week before the American Idol Finale so we were all happy when we chance upon the American Idol marathon on Star TV. We are such David Cook fans and we cannot stop talking about him in the entire time we were in Vigan.

We went out after a couple of hours and took the tricycle again to Baluarte. Good thing the sun was already shining by then! Baluarte is owned by former Ilocos Sur Governor Chavit Singson which is located in the outskirts of Vigan. It has a zoo with several exotic animals and birds. I am not too outdoorsy and fond of animals but I had a fabulous time taking photos of my friends at the mini-butterfly farm.







May 16, Afternoon - Cafe Leona, St. Augustine and Kalesa!

We went back to the city after a couple of hours for a late lunch. This time we tried Cafe Leona at Calle Crisologo for some authentic Vigan delicacies. Cafe Leona is just like the usual Vigan establishment built in an old Spanish-styled house. We were famished from our busy morning so we ordered Bagnet (which is actually just like Lechon Kawali or Crispy Pata), Morcon (which tasted just like Embotido) and some good ol' Pinakbet. We don't like the foodies and preferred our moms' cooking over them. The tab is also quite 'astronomical' given the small serving of the dishes thus we called it Cafe Rip-off. Good thing Charo paid for it as a treat to us!



We strolled again at Calle Crisologo after lunch and checked out some of the souvenir shops and took MORE photos. We also had the "required" Vigan kalesa ride which is Php 150.00 ($3.00) for an hour. The kalesa took us to a nearby town called Bantay where the St. Augustine Church is. The church is unfortunately closed but we were able to take photos and go up to the nice bell tower. Photographers will have a fun time in the tower because it gives a good bird's eye view of Vigan and nearby towns. Too bad it's not well-maintained and there are writings and vandals all over the walls. We had a fun time in Bantay and even made a few friends. :)





The rain started pouring again just right after we left Bantay. The kalesa took us all around town to view more of Vigan's famous sights. We passed by at Villa Angela, a hotel famous for being a favorite location shoot of some Filipino historic movies, but we were not able to go inside because it was closed to the public at that time. We ended in a place called Hidden Garden which is very far away from the center of city thus the "hidden" on its name. The place is actually nice but it was still raining when we got there so we were not able to fully appreciate it. We just rested a bit and had some Ilocos wine called Basi. I love its taste so I bought a bottle.

May 16, Evening - Cafe Uno and Sitio Bar are the Best!

We had dinner at the hotel's coffee shop called Cafe Uno. It's a quaint little cafe with just 4 or 5 tables that serves delicious dishes and sweets. Aside from the delicious food, I also love the mix of modern and old details of the place. I especially love its cool red mug rack which I want to have for my growing Starbucks City Mug collection. We ordered a lot of food but I cannot remember most of them at the moment (I wasn't able to take pictures so I cannot recall). What I remembered was this crunchy cracker that was served with a yummy Dinuguaan dip. It was so delicious and we all loved it! It was definitely our best Vigan meal ever. Include it in your must-do and must-eat if you're going to Vigan.



We went out for a night's stroll after dinner at Calle Crisologo to take more pictures (what else?). It was raining that night so we were practically alone in the street with our cameras. Vigan doesn't really have a rockin' night life so we ended in the only bar near Crisologo named Sitio Bar (which is actually the resto-bar of the very nice Vigan Plaza Hotel). We had a couple of rounds while we grill Jako and Charo about the past, the present and future. We went back to the hotel after midnight to rest for more Vigan adventures the following day.





To be continued. More pictures here and here.

Watch out for the 2nd day of our Vigan adventure and the unexpected 3rd day of misadventure! Photo credits to Aileen (the nice Baluarte marque shot was taken by her), Charo and Tintin.

[For the benefit of my foreign readers, longganisa is a Philippine sausage-like food with ground pork, beef or chicken inside. It can be sweet or sour depending on where you get them. Vigan is a city in the province Ilocos Sur famous for its preserved Spanish-style colonial houses built during the Spanish occupation here in the Philippines. Vigan is also known for its "Vigan Longganisa" thus the title of this post. Credits to Jako for the blog post's title.]

So the rumors are TRUE.

Steve Jobs announced today at exactly 11:32 AM, Pacific Standard Time, at the Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) the first phone to beat the iPhone! What else but the long-anticipated and rumored iPhone 3G!

I am not really an Apple fan and I did not intend to be up at 2:00 am, Philippine Time, just to hear live what fancy stuff Steve is going to announce and launch. But my body clock is screwed once more and my sleeping habit is a total wreck thus I "witnessed live" the launch of the world's most functional, network-friendly and fanciest phone. Thanks a lot to CrunchGear, Twitter and CNET for the live blogs and twits.



Here are some of the stuff about the iPhone 3G which I gathered in the last 30 minutes. Credits again to the above-mentioned sites.

> It's going to be thinner at the edges, with a black plastic back, and metal buttons on the side. It's has the same screen, with a camera, a flush-headphone jack, and improved audio.

> Steve compared the downloading time of 3G and EDGE with The National Geographic's home page. The download with 3G is 21 seconds and EDGE took 59 seconds (but we Filipinos all know this, right?).

> Jobs also compared the iPhone 3G to the Nokia N95 and Treo 750 and of course, iPhone was faster. He also said that the iPhone 3G will have 300 hours of standby time, improved from 8 hours to 10 hours on 2G talk time, and he quoted 5 hours of 3G talk time. Browsing should give 5-6 hours, video 7 hours, and audio 24 hours of continuous operation. It will also have GPS (poor, poor Nokia 95 - the most overrated Nokia phone in my opinion).

> iPhone 3G will be all over the world! It will be sold in 73 countries including THE PHILIPPINES! It's already listed in the iPhone 3G Coming Soon page! This also confirms Globe and Singtel's announcement weeks ago.

View the list and announcement here and here.



> Twenty-five countries will get the iPhone 3G first and they will all get it at the same time on July 11, Friday. Unfortunately, Philippines is not one of them. Launch here is still to be announced.

> iPhone 3G 8GB will be sold at $199 (Php 8,782) in the United States. Wow! Every Tom, Dick, Harry, Pedro and Juan can have one. So so cheap! Some Nokia basic 2G phones are even more expensive than that.

> The 16GB model will be $299 (Php 13,196) and that model will also be available in WHITE!

> The downside? It doesn't have a front camera like our Nokia, Sony Ericsson and Samsung 3G phones. Meaning, no video calling. I also read in one update that there is no MMS facility. NOW that will be a problem. (Can someone confirm this?)

The launch of the iPhone 3G with el cheapo cost will make it more Philippine-friendly than ever (except if subscribers will NOT ignore the rumored no-MMS feature).

Now, where's the iTunes for Philippines, Steve?
Can you introduce iPhone 3G here without it? :) I don't think so.

I got a tag from Marj to make a post on 10 Random Things About Me. Unfortunately, I've already wrote about that one recently so I just decided to post a random thing about me that might surprise most of you.

I Googled my name earlier and found some "incriminating evidence" about me that might cost me my fantabulous job at TEH ONE. Is it a sex scandal video? Nah, too Paris Hilton. Is it a blog entry where I posted some juicy corporate news? Nope, too geeky for me. Think again.

It actually involved a contest where I became an accidental winner.

Note that this happened in November 2003 when I was still a staffer at Honda and far, far far away from where I am now. It was a time when I was still learning how to blog amidst my quarter-life crisis. Just want to point out that one in case my bosses read this. :)

Here's the article which I found here. Read on.



Funny, right?

Yep, I won some concert tickets and scored a meet & greet with Mariah from Globe on her Charmbracelet World Tour in 2003. How weird is that? I was actually just an "accidental winner" because I did not intentionally joined the contest. It was really the F4 songs I downloaded (can this post be more cheesy?) which made me a winner via Globe's electronic raffle. Should DTI be warned and involved on the screwed mechanics? Hah!

There's more.

Since I was not really a Mariah fan and not so into concerts, I gave my two (2) Gold tickets to my brother and sis-in-law. They watched and enjoyed the concert while I went to Shangri-La to meet and greet the diva.

I also remembered being interviewed but I cannot remember saying that Mariah's "a true vision of love" like what the article above said. I know myself well and I don't say stuff like that. I was misquoted by Globe for their PR cr*p! They did not even send our lone picture with Mariah like they promised! I only learned about it when it came out in the papers two months after the concert and friends SMSd me. One friend even sent me a scanned copy of the paper which I cannot find as of the moment.