• Piolo Pascual at Robinson Galleria – Umm. Yes, the Piolo Pascual thing is still here (and I bet it willc ontinue until I stop posting about him…or not). Thing is, I never saw him in Galleria…I did see Sam Milby there, so why am I not getting any hits from Sam Milby searches?
• Dingdong Dantes Fans Club – This is just plain…weird. When did I mention Dingdong Dantes?
• ano mas maganda nokia 6233 o nokia n70 – Translation: Which is more beautiful, Nokia 6233 or Nokia N70? Personally? Nokia 6233 all the way! Captain Tal for the win! :)
• Backstreet Boys in Manila – I didn’t see them live here, unfortunately. :(
  
• Piolo Pascual’s home address in Manila – Okay, this is a killer. No, I don’t know where he lives.
  
• My backstabbing friend trying to turn our friends against me – I know how this feels, whoever you are. Maybe your friend is not a true friend if he/she does that…and if your other friends believe him/her…then they don’t know you that well and are probably not true friends too. *pat pat* I wish the best for you.
  
• photos of people with hangovers – My friends used to have a photo album of these kinds of shots back in college. Hilarious, but not really pretty. Yes, some people actually took pictures of the puke. Eww.
  
• Caleb Chapman Pictures – I only have some here in my blog, but most pictures are in my Multiply, during their visit here in the country. Tuesday, Happy and Jomar also has some great pictures. :) And let me just say, Caleb Chapman is such a handsome young man. It’s hard to believe he’s only 17.

I bet I’d get a lot of hits for Piolo Pascual once again. LOL. Till next installment!

Anyway, I have new things to talk about, like my new (and unexpected) gadget Triskal, buying an expensive earphones, some money-making rackets, planning trips to Oz and whatnot, but because I want to make sure what happened to my bandwidth before doing something a bit heavy, I’ll post that by this weekend instead. For now, it’s time for yet another Search Words for Refine Me post. This is a follow up of the first part, which I had so much fun writing. :P I think this one is going to be a bit funnier than the last one. ;)

• Home of Piolo Addicts – Okay this just made me laugh. I know I get hits for Piolo Pascual pictures (which I don’t have), but this is the best referral I’ve ever had for Piolo. No, this isn’t the home of the Piolo Addicts, unfortunately.
• Music, I am a Princess – I like this. This would make a good tag line or a novel title, don’t you think?
• Books simliar to Kristin Billerbeck – Ah, my forte. Whoever you are, I think you’d also enjoy Laura Jensen Walker, Judy Baer and Denise Hildreth. :) If you want something secular, try Sophie Kinsella or Meg Cabot.
• Words that rhyme with Tina – This should be easy. Gina, Mina, Rina, Ina, Yna, Katrina…okay, those are all names. How about words? Marina. Halina? Harina? Okay, who’s making a poem with Tina here? I bet that’s where this search phrase came from.
• Bretsch & Barrie – Well, that’s a place I haven’t been to for the longest time. This is where I had my first youth camp which I talked about here. One of these days I’ll write about my experience in this place; it’s unforgettable.
• Boyfriend never calls back – Um, okay.
• How much longer till September 3rd? – Around 97 days? :)
• Of me and I appear speck - Wha?! I know I talked about being an insignificant speck, but I do not understand this one.

Right now I am getting a lot of referrals from searches for Pinoy Big Brother Season 2 and the housemates, but it’s because my old PBB blog is redirecting here. :P

Okay now for some reason I can’t find any words to end this post. Oh well. I’ll do it the old-fashioned way then.

The End.

:P

This is the cartoon:

And my caption was: “Mai-d-drive ko ba ang Internet pagkatapos ng rehistro?” ((Rough Translation: Can I drive the Internet after registration?)).

I’m still giddy about the entire winning thing. I’ve admired Moleskine notebooks, and being a notebook collector I want one but I’ve been waiting for a “special occasion” (like my birthday or Christmas or something) before I buy one since it’s kind of hard on my regular day budget. Now I will be able to get one for free! Really, really cool. :P

Many many thanks to PinoyCentric! If you want to win a pocket Moleskine notebook too and read lots of great content on all things brown and beatiful, visit PinoyCentric now! Go go go!

I’ve talked about my Great Adventure lots of times, and here’s another post about it. Bo Sanchez said that one thing we should do to make our dreams and ambitions come true is to write it down, because if we only think about it, it’s just what it is: thoughts. Writing them down makes them more concrete, and reading it everyday helps make it come true. So ever since I turned 21, I attached a list to my journal and (try to) read it everyday. The list is far from done, but at least I’ve got started. :P

Here are Top 5 things from my Great Adventure List (in no particular order):

1. Learn how to jumprope. I used to play lots of jumping games when I was a kid (Ten-Twenty, Chinese Garter) but I never learned how to jumprope. How sad is that? I’ve tried it some time, but I always mix my jumps up (my officemate told me that I lack dexterity or something like that that’s why I have a hard time doing jumps). I want to learn this just because I want to, and I hear it’s a great exercise to lose weight. :p
2. Get a degree in Creative Writing. The other day, my college thesismate Micko told me about the MA program in our alma mater. I checked out some programs in the College of Liberal Arts and the MA in Creative Writing program made me drool. The first subject (Fiction Writing Techniques) already made my heart quicken — I waaaant! If I didn’t take up Computer Science in college, I would’ve taken up Creative Writing instead. Seeing this MA program in DLSU might be the thing I’ve been waiting for. :D
3. Travel, travel, travel. Who doesn’t want this? One of my realizations after graduating is that I want to see the world. I want to visit different countries, be able to actually see the things I have only seen in TV/books/magazines/postcards before. I want to travel around the Philippines and the world. While I’m still single, I figure I better start doing this now. I don’t want to settle down until I have been able to travel, you know? Some places in my (growing) list are: [Philippines] Vigan, Batanes, Pagudpud, Ifugao, Bohol, Palawan, Davao (take 2!), Cebu, Albay, Aklan, Mindoro, Sulu; [outside the Philippines] New York City, Florida, California, Australia, Rome, Malaysia, China, Africa, Egypt, India, Israel, Indonesia — that’s just to name a few. :P My target for next year is: Sydney, Australia (MISSION: SYDNEY). Hello, World Youth Day 2008! Hello, Hillsong!
4. Put up a bookstore. It’s no secret that I love books. A bookstore for me is like a candy shop or toy store to a kid. One time, after a book shopping spree, my mom said, “Why don’t you put up a bookstore?” Which made me think, “Why not?” I have yet to figure out the specifics, but I’ve already got people to dream with me here — right Bea? :)
5. Drive on my own. It’s been a year since I went for driving lessons, but up to now I still couldn’t drive our car on my own. Well, one reason is because my mom returned my driver’s license to the driving school since it says I’m male instead of female, but the other reason is that…well I’m scared. :-s I know how to drive both manual and automatic (but I have to practice on the manual more), but the only thing closest to real driving I’ve ever done (besides my driving lessons, of course), is to drive the automatic Lancer out of our garage and sometimes, drive home from Sunday mass (with an average speed of less than 40kph and hazard lights turned on :p). I need to drive on my own. I have to! How will I ever get myself a Honda Jazz and name it Betty if I can’t even drive to the nearest mall on my own?!
   .

Well that was fun. Maybe I’d do pick another five soon, or make a progress report on these five things. :P How about you? What are your great adventures?

• Stories of regret for unrequited love – Hahahaha! My site’s at the eighth spot, directing to my Writings page. :P I can’t help but laugh.
• Watch CSI NY online – I got this from my CSI NY post, obviously. :) Well, whoever you are, you can watch some episodes here. :P
• WP Themes – I’m on page 9, haha, too far. :P You can get some here, friend. I have a new one coming up by next week, hopefully.
• Living with an obssessive compulsive – Well, I have no answers for that.
• No Boyfriend Since Birth – again, hahahahahaha! Single and proud, bebeh. :P
• Chinese Garter Ten Twenty Philippines – I can’t find my site in the search results, but I got this referral. Talk about old school.
• Piolo Pascual Pictures and Photos – What? None here, but I did mention his name once — during the Hillsong United in Manila event.
  
• Happy Easter Acne - EH?! Perhaps they were looking for natural acne treatments?

More to come in Part 2. :P For now I shall go back to watching Heroes (my officemate is right, Heroes is like Pringles: once you pop, you can’t stop!) in one of the same links I posted above.

Oh, and before I go, mind if you take a bite at some Bitesized Fiction? :) Now open!

Maganda.org is the personal domain of Christine, a Filipina who has been living in California since she was five. Her first design of maganda.org was nominated for a Webby award and has been mentioned in different magazines, which brought lots of attention to her and it is where she found her love of design and writing. Obviously, what attracted me to her site other than the design is the name — maganda is beautiful in Filipino. During the time I found her site, there were just a few websites made by Filipinos, so discovering one (even if she lived in another country) is simply thrilling.

One of my favorite parts of her site is this: fr gm nts, which according to her, “Fragments are sometime fictional, sometimes true, always delicious reading.” And it is. See for yourself:

i want a boy who can come over and hug me if that’s all i need.

“i need a hug,” i’ll say to him.

and thirty minutes later, he’ll be at my front door, arms open wide, ready to take me in and wrap me up in his affection.

Altogether now, awwww. :) And another one:

i knew a boy who would walk a few miles down the street from his house on a night in december, just to sit shivering on the cold pavement and — with the cord stretched as far is it could go — talk to me from a payphone. he would do that because he didn’t have a phone in his apartment. he would do it because he liked me. i was worth it.

More awwwww!!!

I’m not yet done reading her 100 fr gm nts. She also has other small projects, which are a delight to read through. :)

There are so much more things to see and read in her site, so if you haven’t seen it yet, go and do so! It’s worth your visit. =)

I submitted my blog just for fun, thinking that I would probably not even get inside the Top 100. But a few hours later, what do you know? I’m actually at # 88 ((What’s weird is that Mae is also in #88, and she has a higher Technorati rank than I do, so I should be at #89, right?))!

Refine Me at #88!

And I’m a break out too! How cool is that?! :P

I remember a few months back, Jomar and I were talking about how we get our Technorati ranks and how many people link to us and how poor we were with regards to these kind of ranking, but after being immersed with fellow bloggers (and getting lots and lots and lots of link love!) and with the recent WP theme-making stints, I’m surprised and pleased at how this baby of mine has moved — after three years. :P Wahaha, to think I’ve been blogging for about five or so years already but it was only now that I’m actually paying attention to these things. :P I think we can see the reason why I never got to go up like this in ranking and such before — just look at the way I used to blog. Que horror!

Anyway, I bet I’d be kicked out of that spot as soon as other more popular bloggers get listed in Ratified.org, but I’m happy that my baby managed to get in at the Top 100 on its first submission. :P That should be enough…for now. This means…more to come after! :P Yeahbah.

How about you? Have you submitted your blog to be Ratified? :)

UPDATE, 4:03 pm: Like I said. I’m no longer at # 88, I’m already at #89. :P

So now I present to you my second downloadable WordPress theme. *bow*

This layout is entitled Falling Stars, and it is based on Jars of Clay’s Waiting for the World to Fall which is part on the Chronicles of Narnia soundtrack. I had a similar layout for this in RefineMe.org, which I released around late 2005, I think? It was my first purple and starry layout, two things I really, really like, which made me love it so much.

The original version of this, however, made use of tables instead of CSS layers. I was having a hard time controlling the layers to make it look the way I wanted it to. Also, the original one is narrower than this theme, and I had a weird appearing/disappearing sidebar. :P

As with the previous layout, I can’t remember where I got the images I used here. I remember searching for “falling stars” in Google and then got these images.

This theme is a bit girly with all the stars and such, but I think it’s a keeper. :P I hope you enjoy this one as much as I enjoyed making it (two days! Wohoo!). You may preview it here or click here to download the theme. If you like it and use it, please comment here so I can see it. And if you see any bugs, please don’t hesitate to tell me. =)

Wohoo! I’ve got more under my sleeve…er, my hard drive folders, and I’ll have them re-coded and up in the next few weeks. Right now I think I’ll rest my coding fingers and eyes and do some reading. :)

Happy Sunday, everyone!

I do not know what spring really looks/feels like, and I know it is summertime in the Philippines, but whatever. :P The thing is: I just made my first downloadable WordPress Theme! Wohoo! :)

This theme is based on one of my old domain layouts (pictured on the left) which I released back in 2004. It looked a lot different then than it does now, but back then I was still using b2, WordPress‘ predecessor (anyone remember this?), so themes are basically non-existent then ((Or maybe there are, but I didn’t know anything about it)). I can’t remember where I got the butterfly image, but I think I got it from gettyimages or something. I really can’t remember. :P This was also the first layout where I started using PHP from old SHTML. I was influenced by my software engineering class big time. :)

You may preview the theme or download it. :D If you see any bugs, please don’t hesitate to contact me about it.

Who knew making WP themes can be so addictive? Hahaha! I’m such a geek! :-B But I really did have fun! Now to make WP themes out of my other old layouts. Booyah!

The blogosphere has been quite noisy for the past few days, mostly because of the most recent happening, the 2007 Philippine Blog Awards. Now, I won’t add to the fire and talk about the controversies surrounding it because I believe enough has been said. Let me just say these things:

• Congratulations to all the winners! I haven’t really done some blog hopping among the finalists, but I know all of you are deserving of the awards. :)
• Kudos to Abe, Jayvee and Gail for initiating and organizing the event, as well as to all the sponsors, judges and fellow volunteers who helped make this event possible. It’s an honor working with you guys. :)
• More kudos ((And OMG, I forgot to give your “prizes”. Next time! :D)) to the Stage and Decor Team, namely Jomar, LA, Joni, Riz, Vida, Cathie and Fer. Once again, FUN TEAM, YAY! Thanks for allowing us to be makulit, and for all almost sleepless (well, not in LA’s case) nights making the graphics which Marc put in his one-night in the making Flash presentation that was displayed onstage. You guys rock. Sa uulitin? ;)
• I’d also like to mention my fellow ushers, most of whom we recruited in the last minute: Joni, LA, Cathie, Fer, Darwin, Shari, Mae and Jun. I know some of my instructions were kind of magulo, but thanks for understanding pa rin. :P
• Fr. Stephen’s prayer for that night is probably the geekiest prayer I’ve ever heard, but (as I commented in his blog), it rings true, particularly to Godchicks. :)

As for the other issues surrounding this…like I mentioned, I believe enough has been said, and there’s no need for me to add to the fire. Not that I’m playing safe; I just think this isn’t the proper venue to air whatever concerns I have about the event (which is none, actually), plus I think it’s better to focus on the positive side of things (Hello, optimism!).

Here’s something to think about. I remember talking to a friend about intercession. He said that when we pray for another person, more often than not, this person we’re praying for starts acting or doing even worse thing than before we started praying for him. He says the reason why this happens is that God is already working on this person and the person is resisting to the still small voice. It’s like one time when I was sick — I felt like throwing up but I really didn’t want to, so I resisted, but when I finally did, I felt so much better.

Wait, was that analogy correct? It’s like saying that good always triumphs over the bad, that the victory is still there, that the darkest part of the night is just before dawn and that truth, no matter how hurtful, still is better than the lies (oh so drama). That’s why when you’re praying for someone and it seems like the person is getting worse, it doesn’t mean one should stop praying because nothing’s happening. Keep on praying because for all you know, the person you’re praying for is just one step away from victory, and all he needs is a little spiritual push. :)

Moving on…I made my first credit card purchase today. Haha, proud moment?

Actually, I already have a credit card but it’s an extension from my dad’s. My brother and I recently got ourselves one and while he’s been happily swiping ((Much thanks to this swiping that I got a new watch as a late birthday gift)) for the past few weeks, I have yet to decide what to buy with it. My mom told me to use it within the month or else I would never get to use it. I was thinking of buying a new phone ((What happened to the phone I was waiting for from Smart? I’ll have that up on another post.)) with it, with its zero interest plans but I’m not so sure if I could pay for it with my salary without getting hungry so I decided to sit that one out until I earn enough (or unless someone is nice enough to get me a new one :p).

I have more or less settled to use my card to buy new clothes, but not this soon. I went to work today without my usual jacket, thinking that it isn’t that cold anymore because it’s already summer and it’s friggin’ hot outside. I was wearing this short-sleeved V-neck top my brother gave me last Christmas, and I thought it was fine despite my huge arms and if somehow the airconditioners are colder today, then I’d just try to manage.

However, I forgot that there’s this huge industrial fan that is in front of our area and it is directly facing us. This was the same fan that we used when Milenyo struck and left us aircondition-less in the office. The fan’s been here since last Monday and I don’t know why, since our airconditioner is working fine. More unfortunately, I sit at the first cubicle from where the fan is standing so it’s extra cold in my area. Result? A freezing Tina.

So come lunch time, I heard mass at EDSA Shrine and then went around the mall for a while, trying to warm myself but no such luck. It was then I decided to use the powers of the card. *cue music here* I went around the department store to get a jacket that is (1) not blue or pink, (2) not denim and (3) looks good enough to wear at work. After roaming around and seeing few jackets that either looks good but is too expensive or just right price but doesn’t look good enough for work, I spotted this brown stretch jacket from Bunny Jeans. P649, less 10%! And they have one in my size! Yay!

Now I’m usually a shopper who more or less buys the first thing I see that I like, that’s why I bought this one immediately. That, and I need to get back up at the office already. So swipe, swipe! I’m wearing it now, and although it has this new clothes smell that I think can only be removed through washing or ironing, I feel a bit more comfortable now that my arms are covered. And the jacket really does look good to wear at work. ;) I will try to post a picture of this one next time. :D

Oh yeah, and it makes my arms look less huge too. Yay!

To end this really long post, I just want to announce that I will not be online starting tomorrow until Black Saturday. I will be fasting from using the computer together with my other fasting for the rest of the Holy Week. I will not die if I don’t turn my computer on for three days ((I was planning to do this fast for the entire Holy Week, but seeing that I’m at work, I couldn’t exactly just turn my computer off here)).

Why fast? Well, as what Judy McDonald of Lifeteen.com says:

Lent is not about giving things up and making those around miserable. Its about looking at your life and seeing what is keeping you from Jesus.

I want a real one on one time with the Father for the rest of the Holy Week, to see, understand and really feel His love by letting His Son go through all the suffering for me. It’s time to reconnect, to be silent and to just allow Him to love me, no matter how undeserving I am.

So friends, I will see you on Easter Sunday! :) I have some advance posts to share for the next few days so it won’t be too lonely here. Have a meaningful Holy Week, everyone. :)