Octoberfest Nightout

Last October 6,2007, some night shift agents decided to unwind and take a day out after weeks and months of being tied up at work. As agents, we usually arrive at the office an hour before our log in time or a few minutes before and sit down our own assigned units. We log in our yahoo messenger ids then open our emails to check important instructions for our tasks from our clients. We start working even before 10pm and take a our break at 2am. Some don't even take their breaks as they just love working. We resume working at 3am then go home at 7am. This is basically our normal cycle from monday to friday.

We do not have much time to relax and relieve ourselves of the stress we get from work. So most of us decided to join the planned saturday night out by our fellow night shift webmaster agent. We also invited our company manager and our tech admin, and our trainer from iloilo who gamely joined us. So what better way to unwind on October but to visit the Octoberfest Celebration at Victoria Plaza carpark.

About 3/4 of the total population of the night shift agents joined and one morning agent. A combination of web developers, web masters, graphic artist, virtual assistants, link builders, and writers were present that night. We paid for our own drinks and chipped in for our "pulutan". Actually i don't drink so i just had Cali. The place was already jam packed when we arrived at past 9pm. Good thing our web master was able to find us a good spot.

So after a few rounds of beer our manager asked what would we want to do next, and our link builder replied lets go for a videoke session. So our manager asked us if our parents would allow us. She also asked if the boys can still stay up awake coz the webmaster who initiated the night out was already closing his eyes. We teased him that he should not sleep since he was our project manager for the night... hahaha! So we texted our parents telling them we will not be going home and that we will be out till dawn. It is much safer anyway since we were in the company of a big crowd. So after discussing what is the best place for a 24 hour videoke session, Bonguyan beach was chosen.

We rode a taxi from Victoria Plaza to Bonguyan beach. But we were saddened when we learned that videoke machines are put off at 10pm and will only operate back at 5am because of a city ordinance by our city mayor. So our manager suggested that we go somewhere near penongs in SM. And our link builder was asked if it was just a walking distance from bonguyan. She replied yes so we started walking. This is where our adventures began! After a few meters of walking our manager complained. I thought it was just a walking distance! So it really is walking a very very far distanceee... lolz!

Good thing a multicab passed by and stopped to ask us where we were heading so we all rushed to ride and so we instructed the driver to bring us to penongs. I was really thinking there was a penongs somewhere along the highway near SM. So when the multicab passed by John Paul college i immediately called the attention of our manager "mam lampas na tayo ng SM! andun ang SM!" so we called the attention of the driver and he made a u-turn. So the driver was now driving at high speed. Our manager already told him that we will turn at marikina shoe exhange office. But he just passed by it coz he was speeding to much. So we shouted " manong lampas na!" then he made another u-turn... then our manager told him "liko po tayo dyan" but the made the wrong turn.. he turned to the left instead.. so we again shouted " mali! sa kabila!" so he made another u-turn.. and we were all laughing! "waahhhh!! grabehh!"

So we finally found the spot and we kept laughing coz the place our manager was talking about was times beach and we already passed that place even before we passed by John Paul college. The driver was quite mad coz "wala daw mi klaro" waahhh! he was overspeeding that is why our manager did not notice we passed by that place already..

So anyway, we were there and we were given the cottage near the seashore since it was really prohibited to operate the machine that time of the night because of the city ordinance.. We had singing and dancing and some bondings with our fellow agents.. The cost per song is only three pesos so the 200 pesos so we had a handful of songs to sing. We decided to go home when the sun rised.. but then we had a casualty. Our graphic artist brought with him his motorcycle so our web master tried riding it, but our virtual assistant also wanted to try riding it. Our graphic artist was apprehensive about lending him the motorcycle so he decided to ride at the back. He instructed the virtual assistant not to speed up and he even held the handle of the motorcycle so he can control the speed but our virtual assistant did not listen and so the motorcycle skidded on the sand. The graphic artist made a what they call Zaido move and jumped off the vehicle, but the virtual assistants leg was caught by the mudguard and the wheel.

So he has a wound in his right leg. The guys were teasing him coz if he only listened to the owner of the motorcycle he would have not met that accident. Our manager became a first aider for a moment as she cleaned the wound of our virtual assistant. She sent her off a taxi to make sure he would be able to go home safe since he cannot walk straight after the incident. She also texted the father of the agent to inform him of what happened.

Well accidents happen and someone learned his lesson... some bonding was made and it will surely be a night to remember! With our very busy sched we do not know when our next bonding session would be... ^^
Read full post...

Movie Review: A Love Story

Maricel Soriano-Aga Mulach-Angelica Panganiban's love triangle in the movie titled "A Love Story" was something that is not really new to society. Last sunday, i went out with my mother to watch this talk of the town movie. We entered the movie house during the part that Aga was prodded by Angelica to play the favorite song of his dad on the piano. So we were aware that Angelica was the legal wife and Maricel was the mistress. But if you would enter the movie house at the start of the film, you would be confused since the movie started with Angelica confronting Maricel inside a restaurant and she was asking Maricel questions bout her relationship with Aga. Going through the movie, you would be made to think that it was Maricel who was the wife of Aga. It was only in the latter part of the movie that the viewers would realize that Angelica was the wife and the reason why Aga fell in love with Maricel was because Angelica was too busy with her work and had no time for her husband.

The movie basically has a lot of lessons for couples. The wife must be able to give enough time and attention for her family as shown in the movie where Aga began complaining when Angelica would always have emergency flights as a stewardess to fill in for her absent co-employees. This actually goes both ways. Both husband and wife must be able to give quality and quantity time to each other. I really love that favorite quote of Dante Rivero (who played Aga’s dad with Alzheimer’s) about flowers and women “Ang babae para bulaklak yan.. wag mo pipitasin kung di mo aalagaan..”

Maricel was the ob-gyne who Aga met when he had an accident while wakeboarding. Maricel herself was heartbroken with her separation from her ex-husband (Mark Gil). They fell in love but Angelica eventually learned about the relationship. Maricel was aware Aga was a married man so she was just as paranoid as Angelica everytime Aga would not be by her side.

In the end, the lesson here is all about loyalty. Be loyal to your partner and talk things out when conflicts would arise. Be ready to forgive and forget (although this is always the hardest part). Angelica struggled on this part during her pregnancy when she would be in constant paranoia to the point that she would look into Aga’s cellphone to check his calls and messages. It is not healthy as Aga got so pissed off with her jealousy. Another lesson is learning to let go. Maricel found it so hard to let go of Aga because she had fallen dearly for him. It was such a brave thing for her to be in front of both Aga and Angelica when she attended to the pregnant Angelica who got stressed out after confronting her in the hospital. She acted as if she did not know Aga and even said “you must be the husband?” but when she went out the room she proceeded to the ladies room to cry her heart out.

Love is all about taking risks. Be prepared to get hurt. Love with all your heart but be sure to reserve some for yourself, so if you get hurt it won’t be that hard to pick up the pieces.

Read full post...

1st Team Building and Company Outing

Our company here in Davao went to High Ponds Resort at Binugao Toril for our first ever company outing and team building last August 27, 2007. It was a holiday since it was the celebration of the National Heroes Day last August 26, 2007, which happens to fall on a Sunday and according to the law, if a holiday falls on a Sunday the following day would be a holiday. The davao staff assembled at the office at 6am and left at around past 7am.

We arrived at High Ponds Resort just before 8am. We were divided into four group with six members each. It was a mixture of the morning and night shift employees so that everybody would have the opportunity to get to know all the agents. Our group consisted of night agents Mark, Ricky, Elvie and Me, and morning agents Dean Ryan and Cyrose. The very first thing we had to do was to think of a group name. Since me and Mark were the youngest in the group( shhh... wag papalag! hehehe), we had to ask for opinions from our other team mates for the chants. We decided to call ourselves the cyber reps (since our jobs are basically internet/cyber based) and came up with a boom tarat tarat inspired chant. Each group came up witth very creative team names and chants. The only group name that i can recall was group 3's very "sipsip" group name "agents of merju.".

Group one had a spelling inspired chant. With ice ice bebi laughing all the way while reading her "kodigo". The runaway winner for the group chant was of course the group that consisted of master rapper cliff, gladys, jocel, henry, lyka, and the very groovy kuya mike who was evidently giving it his all in the pictures. Homebased writer Ms. Babeth was the host for the activities and games. We had the group juggling game, the giants wizards and elves game, the egg catcher and we made a mural as a summary of all the activities we did for the day.

We had our lunch then there was a short talk given by Mr. Pete Miole, the owner and Pres of Fix Right Allied Services, Inc. It was basically about how to avoid and resolve conflicts in the work place. After the talk, prizes were given to the groups and of course it was time to swim and have fun! But it seems not everybody was interested to take a dip in the pool. It was only me, mark, melissa, lyka and her BF, abby and her BF, and fortunately we were able to convince ice to join us after a lot of teasing from me and melissa and a promise that we would help her to change her dress. We really had fun playing in the pool and jumping into the water. Ice even took a video of that jump into the pool. I am looking forward to more company outings in the near future.

Read full post...

Want it Free?

Admit it or not we all love the idea of getting things for “FREE”, having what we call our “FREE TIME” and of course we don’t want to be restricted in the things that we do that is why we want “FREEDOM”.

I was searching for the top 500 most searched keywords in the search engine and I just saw something very prominent on the list that I read. It has something to do with the word “FREE” and I said to myself “who would not want to have something that is free?”

Yes we all enjoy things that are for free. When we go to the malls we are easily fooled by those promo schemes “buy 1 take 1 free” or sometimes it’s “buy 2 take 1”. But do we take time to look at the original price of the item that we are supposed to buy? Well I don’t know for some of you but I am very meticulous with prices and what I would usually notice with those stuffs that are offered for those promo schemes is that the original price has already been jacked up. So basically it’s either you are paying for both items or you are paying for the price of the original item plus half of the free item. So there! The next time you shop, take time to check the price tag and compare.

Have you also tried receiving flyers in the malls or sometimes being invited by your friends for a “free demo” or “free seminar”? If you haven’t experienced this then maybe you can pick up some ideas here. Some products nowadays use the free demo or free seminar gimmick. They offer free demos and the next thing you know you are forced to buy their products. Products that is way too expensive and not very practical to purchase.

Over the internet, things are definitely the same. Top searched keywords have something to do with “free” stuffs. From free text, free calls, free online games, free downloads, free software, free pictures, free wallpapers, free screensavers, free email, free hosting, free anti virus, free crack, free lyrics, etc. The list goes on and on.. Anything that is for free, people just love it! Some adults may deny it, but most of them have searched also for free porn (especially the naughty boys).

In our country where almost everybody owns a cell phone, people have been going crazy over what mobile companies call as unlimited text. Some offer it at lower prices while some offer it at a price higher than their competitors. But for those who cannot afford to load up their cell phones, the next best option is to go to the pawnshop and have it pawned to get money to buy load. Just kidding! The internet offers free text and sometimes free calls. You just have to be very astute at finding those sites that offer “real” free text or calls. For free text, try www.chikka.com. It’s free but if the person you are sending the SMS to replies via chikka, they get to pay P2.50 instead of the usual P1/text if they send it directly to your mobile. Do you have the conscience to bear that? Hehehe

Online games have become a trend around the globe and that includes the Philippines. A lot of kids, teenagers and the young at heart have been hooked to playing online games. So what makes it so special compared to LAN games and other games that we play alone on our PC? It’s the massive multiplayer online role playing game (MMORPG) excitement that they get from it that makes it exceptional. They get to play with thousands of other players who are also playing the game from any part of the world exactly at the same time that they are playing the game. Here they also get to build an online community of friends. I used to work for a company that pioneered online games here in the country and we used to have the players pay P350 for a monthly game time. But new companies came in and offered free online games. Now the trend has switched from requiring players to pay for game time to offering game items for a fee. This way, the players get to play for free and if they want to gear up their characters or avatars in the game they will have to purchase cards to buy those special items. This is where gaming companies get their income now.

Free downloads, free software, free picture, free wallpapers, free screensavers are also mostly being searched for. We love to pamper our PC to make it look good and so we look for anything free. Web designers and developers search for free pictures which they can put in the websites they are designing or developing. Copyrighted pictures are prohibited of course. We continuously look for free software’s that would make life easier for us. But we must also be aware that there is a very big danger involved whenever we download free software. We put our PC’s at risk of getting viruses, from trojans to worms to other potentially dangerous viruses. We just have to be very cautious whenever we download stuffs.

Speaking of viruses, there are also free anti virus software and the most famous is AVG. I have heard a lot of good comments on AVG and it’s a very reliable anti virus even if it’s a free one.

Then there is also free email. I think almost everybody who uses the internet has his/her own email and most of us are using those free emails. Yahoomail, gmail and hotmail are the top 3 free email service providers.

For those who enjoy creating and have the talent to create their own websites, there is free web hosting. A lot of sites offer free hosting but you just have to bear with the advertisements plus some have limited bandwidth. Well it’s free so you don’t have the right to complain if your website exceeds bandwidth and won’t be visible to the viewers.

Because we love free software, some offer them for only a limited trial period then we have to enter a license code. But if we cannot purchase such license, there are also available free crack. Careful though as free cracks are really very risky especially if you download at home. My suggestion would be to go to a net café and download it there rather than downloading it at your own PC and putting it in danger of getting viruses.

The singers with lovely voices and not so lovely voices search for free lyrics over the net. People just love to sing along while playing their MP3 or MP4 collections and this is the reason why they search for lyrics. Some even go to the point of memorizing the lyrics of their favorite songs.

For the perverts around the world, the most searched keyword is of course free porn. Some are even too nasty that they open porn sites at internet cafes. Good thing some cafes have now been very strict with this as people from all walks of life and of all ages can access those browsers and some minors may come across those sites that those perverts have been browsing previously. There is also a risk for getting viruses from porn sites. I have heard a lot of comments that some computers have been damaged by viruses mainly from opening free porn sites. So if you love your PC and you don’t want to lose some of your files, better stay away from those sites.

Over at school we also love what we call our free time. Even when we are already working we also look forward to our free day or what we call our day off. And in all the things that we do, we never want to be given restrictions because we enjoy freedom. It’s a good thing we live in a democratic country.

It’s really fun to have things for free but there are risks involved and we just have to be very careful and exercise extreme precautions not to damage our PCs. Remember you may be getting things without a fee but you are risking your PC which you bought with your hard earned money.

Read full post...

The 22nd Kadayawan Festival

Davao city is celebrating its 22nd kadayawan festival. It is a festival in thanksgiving and celebration for a bountiful harvest. At this time of the year, anywhere you would go in Davao, you can see plenty of fruits and flowers. It is a week long celebration and it is highlighted by the "indak-indak" on a saturday and the floral float parade on a sunday. The celebration of the kadayawan festival kicked off last week with lots of activities all around the city. We had the hudyakaan(food and music fiesta) at NCCC mall, the agro industrial trade fair at SM city mall, the ikebana international flower exhibit also at NCCC mall, 2nd Mindanao Travel and Tour Exposition at SM city mall, cultural celebration at the Rizal park, the Hiyas ng kadayawan at CAP auditorium, the kadayawan fiesta bazaar at the DAvao Convention and Trade Center, 3rd Waling-waling Cup – Floral Arrangement Workshop & Competition at Waterfront Insular Hotel, Cultural Celebration at Maguindanao Tribe at Rizal Park, Davao River Festival at Davao Riverfront, Durian Festival at Landco compound, and National Dog Ultimate Challenge at Damosa Gateway. These are only a few of the long list of activities that happened here in Davao in connection with the kadayawan festival. Of course a lot of tourists flocked the city to celebrate with us. A lot of davawenyos who left Davao also came back to visit the city and celebrat e. The weather was very cooperative during the indak indak and floral float parade for it rained the previous nights but the sun shined beautifully in the morning

allowing for the expectators to enjoy the parade. Well almost everybody was up the whole day yesterday when all the malls had their midnight sale. Naturally there was traffic all over downtown. You just have to figure out which route you must take to be able to arrive to your destination with the least number of traffic stops. So after the kadayawan festival we have a holiday tomorrow. Ninoy aquino day which was moved by the President since it was supposed to be celebrated august 21. Thats the trademark of our present president to move holidays so that they would be close to weekends, a thing i think they call as holiday economics. Am i right? lolz! Well anyways, my mother's siblings are also in town because my auntie Elena and uncle Ben are here for a short vacation and attend the first b-day celebration of their one and only grandchild. Its also the death anniversary of my grandfather. Well she will really eat durian while here for there are lots of durian fruits sold all around the city. Not only durian, there is rambutan, lanzones, mangoosteen and lots of other fruits. Another holiday is coming up next week, the National heroes day. ^^

Read full post...

How to Optimize your Articles

I came across a very interesting article which has helped me with my job and i hope it can also help other writers out there who are into content writing.... read on and learn from the expert.. or you may visit http://www.searchengineworkshops.com/articles/tips-for-articles-seo.html

Easy Writing Tips for creating and optimizing your articles

by
John Alexander

I'd like to share a few simple tips and techniques for working with search engine optimization in articles. Of course most writers will be writing for their audiences anyways and this is the way it should be. But in addition, there is nothing wrong with applying some mild optimization principles to your Web based article content for better exposure and ranking on the search engines.

So let's start with a few basic, easy-to-follow tips that should help your cause as you apply them.

Tip 1. Start by writing for your audience - without concerns about the SEO technical stuff.

By this we are talking about writing something of value that speaks directly to your audience. Highly useful content that engages the reader and will meet their need. Write something that you can feel proud of. Do not stress or worry about search engine optimization tactics while you are in the creative writing phase. Most of the time we do not create our best work, if we are all bogged down about SEO related issues...such as how many times a keyword is being used or what the exact keyword density is. Write your article for the readers first and try and keep it focused on one central topic.

Tip 2. When you are creating an article, understand that often that article is "born" as you write it.

Maybe you are a new writer just getting started. If you are struggling with an idea or feel like you have writers block, it's important to realize that one of the best ways to get started, is to simply begin actually writing and let your article "take shape" as you write it. Fashion your story as you assemble your thoughts onto paper. Writing is something that flows as you practice. Great articles are born as you write them.

Tip 3. Realize that some of your best article writing will be created if you work on it over a period of time.

I believe that often, our thoughts creatively continue as the old expression suggests...as we "sleep on it." This applies especially to creative writing or even just copywriting in general. Try working on two or three different projects at a time and over a period of a few days. Don't be in a big rush to finish something off quickly. But give yourself the liberty to be creative over a period of time.

Tip 4. Once your article is finished, it's time to test it out and see how it will flow to the reader.

One of the smartest tips I learned from Robin Nobles, is to read your finished content out loud. There are errors that will not be picked up by the spell checker. But as you read your work out loud, certain issues will surface and you can make changes to the "delivery of the article" or the "tone of the article" so that it flows much better.

Once your article is complete it's time for a little SEO (or a little mild optimization.)

Tip 5. Use Wordtracker to do some additional keyword research and include important keyword phrases into your article in specific areas.

You can mildly re-write your finished article with specific attention to basic optimization principles. Pay attention to your focus on the "researched phrase" especially with respect to usage in the Title Tag, Description Tag, Heading text and of course the link text. Remember that there is a huge advantage to writing your article first and then as a second step, applying some very basic, mild optimization. Try and stay focused on just one keyword phrase per article.

Secret: Did you know that if you write your article so that it naturally "reads very well," you will naturally gain some bonus for having useful content that reads well to a human being. You don't need to stuff your tags full of keywords but use moderation in everything you do. One of the things you need to understand is that "theme based" search engines like Google, are actually using a measure of artificial intelligence (AI) to measure how well your article reads based on all of the overall data a search engine has gathered concerning a specific topic. The better you write quality content so that it reads intelligently, the closer you will be to matching your correct theme.

Tip 6. Remember to flesh your article out in the re-write process with a few additional synonyms of your focused keyword phrase. You want your article highly focused on your topic, but it should not need to sound Spamy with the same keywords repeatedly used in an un-natural way.

Tip 7. Consider the quality of "customer focus" within your dialogue and article content. There are all types of articles of course, but many times we could do much better by speaking to our readers rather than just writing coldly stating facts or information. There are times when you'll want to breath some human interest into an article. While other times, the article could feature historical or statistical information. Always keep the audience who you are writing to in mind and apply a good "reader focus" to your articles so that you include the right elements. What types of phrasing are you using to put the message across? Is it WE, OUR, OURS, etc....or is it YOU, YOURS and YOU'RE.

Tip 8. Don't forget to include a detailed Bio.

It should not be too long, but it needs to include your important keyword phrase within the text links, which will link back to your Web site. Make sure your Bio reads well and realize that it must be kept down to about 300 to 400 characters. Some editors just don't want your Bio going on for miles.

Tip 9. Remember to think about submission of your article to quality e-zines and publications.
You can use a free submission service such as this one. The free service sends to over 3,723 editors and 9 article announcement groups. They also have a pay service for $39.95 for unlimited submissions over 3 months to

Read full post...