I have moved my personal blog to AlexisChua.com. The URL is now not as ridiculous-sounding as this one. It has long been my desire to self-host my blog, and to use Wordpress. Thanks to some generous people, I did not have to spend a single cent for a domain and hosting package!

All posts have been copied to the new blog. As of the moment, I am still tinkering with the CSS codes of my new blog, so do not be surprised if the new site looks and feels different every thirty minutes. I will not update this blog anymore. Thank you for following my rants and raves in this blog! I have had a great time blogging here for almost a year. Please update your bookmarks and blogrolls, and see you all at my new home!

I was one of the nominees in the search for the Top 10 Emerging Influential Blogs for 2010, initiated by Miss Janette Toral. It was heartwarming to be nominated by friends and strangers alike to be one of the emerging new blogs in the blogosphere today. I can now thump my chest proudly because my personal blog's reason for existence - to positively influence others - is already fulfilled!

I was lucky not to belong to the generation where tech specs surprise people like, "Whoah! It prints three pages a minute!", or "Gee, it prints in color with a single ribbon!"

But then, I am lucky to be in a generation to have seen the best of the world's dot-matrix printers - the Epson LX-300! Who cannot ignore the awfully annoying sound as the LX-300 prints? And who could have imagined that multiple copies can be printed using the good ol' carbon paper? An office, nowadays, isn't complete without at least one Epson LX-300 printer stinging every ear in the room.

The GenSan Tuna Festival Experience 2010 is set to more than please the festival gods and everybody else on September 18-26! There is something in store for each and everyone because General Santos City has all the reasons to celebrate! Here is the press release from the City Government of General Santos:

The 2010 Tuna Festival Month of September that is being handled by the Tuna Festival Council headed by Mayor Darlene Antonino-Custodio and the GenSan Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Inc. (GSCCCII) started on a high note last week.

Number Two on my When-I-Get-a-Job Wishlist is to have my own domain and hosting for my site. I guess I do not have to wait for a job before I complete my list! WPWebhost is holding a contest and will give away a Rookie plan with FREE domain name. Here are the contest details from the contest site.

How To Win?
1. Blog about this contest and link back to this post. You could take a banner here and insert to your post.
2. Get 7 comments for your post. (Trackback isn’t counted)
3. Submit your blog post URL through comment below, along with your name and valid email address in the provided fields.
4. Yippee! You have just won a FREE WordPress hosting plan + a domain name. We will email you further steps to claim the prize within 2 weeks.

Terms & Conditions
1. Every participant is entitled to only one prize.
2. This giveaway ends on 30 Sep 2010.
3. WPWebHost reserves the right to amend or revise the terms and conditions of this promotion without prior notice.
4. WPWebHost has the right to disqualify any participation which does not fulfil the requirements.

Join the contest NOW and get your own domain and hosted WordPress blog!

Thanks to Sir Avel for sharing the info. :)

Apple's iPod Touch is more than a media player. It is a mobile computer that makes you forget that it is an iPod! Thanks to a generous donor, I got myself an Apple iPod Touch a couple of months ago. Since then, it has transformed my mobile and online life! Of course, the reason for this are the countless apps available in Apple's App Store. Here are my Top 10 Apps, in no particular and significant order:

I still cannot get over yesterday's unveiling of the 4th generation of the iPod Touch line. I bought an Apple iPod Touch 3rd-gen around 7 months ago. Suddenly, it feels obsolete, specially that the new version had a slew of fantastic new features, all for the SAME price as its older sibling! Here are some of its new features:

Being idle sometimes does have its own benefits. Late this afternoon, I tinkered with my blog and came up with an idea of creating a portal for the SOCCSKSARGEN Bloggers. What's a blogging group doing without its own blog, yes? I ended up with a kewl site with a free domain and (drumroll) hosted on Blogger! The site uses Google Docs to power its Registration Page, and the blog URLs of everyone who registers automatically appears on the Member Blogs page. Kewl, huh?

The Browser Wars! Image from Choose Opera

Nowadays, the world seems to be filled with all sorts of products that are either destined to improve our lives (though unecessary in the first place), or to ruin it.

Equally, my friends, are the number of corporations claiming to be number one and creating mere assumptions that their products are the best that the world has ever seen. But the crazy problem about the market ranks game is that if there are fifty companies competing for a slice of the market for plastic bags, forty-five of them would say that they are 'number one'. That leaves the remaining five to settle for the 'number two' spot. Or if they would be humble enough, they'd go for the third, fourth, and fifth spots.

Photo credits: Yahoo! Philippines

Monday's hostage drama that turned into a tragedy was an unprecedented blow to the Philippine government, and the nation as a whole. At least eight of tourists from Hong Kong were killed in a 10-hour hostage drama in the vicinity of Quirino Grandstand, in the tourist belt of Manila. What seems to promise a good end to the situation turned into a bloody resolution.

I join the people of Hong Kong and the People's Republic of China in mourning for the loss of its people. I join our country and its people in condemning this tragedy. I join the Filipino people in the shame for the wrongdoings of not just one, but many of my people. 我们很抱歉。

Forget the ampersand. I would have to do the image all over again just to remove it. :p

Blogging has indeed redefined how netizens express themselves. Through this expression of oneself through blogging, one may positively influence others. Interestingly, many new blogs have the common goal of having an good impact on others. And this entry aims to list the TOP 10 of the most positively-influencing new blogs in the blogosphere. Here are my bets for the Top 10 Emerging Influential Blogs for 2010:

Aside from being a movie buff, I am also a self-proclaimed 'mall' person. Nothing beats hanging out in the mall during hot, lazy, full-wallet days. In recent times, the people of General Santos City have been beaming with pride of the rapid rise of places to go, even surpassing many cities that were once ahead of GenSan.

As a frequent mall-goer, I have learned to see what's hot and what's not in the mall industry. Just when I thought that what the malls in General Santos have been giving to us were just enough, Robinsons Place opened its doors to the public, bringing the best of the nation's shopping experiences under one elegant roof.

I encountered the Big O way before GandaEverSoMuch.com was born. It was during one of my 'pumapapel' stints at the Yaman Gensan 2009. The Sir Orman was one of the judges in the Business Plan competition, and I was one of the representatives of our university whose business plan was to be bashed with no mercy by the judges.

Yes, our paper was judged and critiqued to our hearts' despair. He delved into the complexities of our business plan, as we have expected and prepared for. But as the session came to an end, the Big O complained of our below-standard thickness of paper, as well as the single-spaced document that we submitted. "Wala bang matinong photocopier sa school n'yo?". My colleagues know me as someone who'll never stop defending something that we worked on for a week of bloody, sleepless nights, but instead of speaking further to defend myself, I was amused and got no words to speak anymore! (Speech cloud above me: "'T*** **a, 'di ko naisip yun ah!") 'Hell, he's right. Our school in the desert lacks a decent photocopier, and we have misunderstood the instructions for the business plan.

President Benigno Aquino III delivering his first SONA - photo: Yahoo! Southeast Asia

See the full text of Pres. Benigno Simeon "Noynoy" Aquino III's State-of-the-Nation Address (SONA) 2010 below. The English version follows right after the original Filipino text. Thanks, Manolo Quezon III for the transcript.

I have been writing for over a decade and I only get a few people to read my write-ups. I’ve also been reading for over a decade already. And the writings I read are made by big and small people with equally big minds, and equally big hearts to share what their amazing minds are coughing out.

I created this blog for more people to have a piece of my mind, and as a gratitude to all the big-hearted writers for all the things I’ve read.

In picking my favorite post in Sir Orman's blog, GandaEverSomuch.com, I thought that it has to be something special from among the whopping 400+ posts in the blog in just under a year. But, believe it or not, there is one really recent blogpost that I have read more than once. It is the blog post entitled '21 Ways To Celebrate Happiness Today', posted the 15th of July.

Resilience summarizes the thought of Confucius, a great philosopher, who lived his teachings not just by mouth, but by his life.

Quit wondering why there are very few people who can manage to start and end the day with a smile despite the rising prices of commodities, including the so-called ‘ulam ng bayan’-instant noodles. Some might think that some people are just to numb to feel the ever-worsening situation of all- well, most- of the people in the tiny specks of land in the Pacific called the Philippines.

5. You have a phobia of the Letter "O". The letter 'O' usually connotes something big and fearful. GandaEverSoMuch is indeed going big on the blogosphere, but is rather lovable. One cannot help but smile or shed a tear when reading the blog posts that range from the topics of current issues, events, and even updates of his colorful daily experiences as a banker, a blogger, a friend, a lover, and even just one of us who experience occasional emo attacks. When one visits GandaEverSoMuch.com for the first time, either or both of the following happens: the visitor clicks the 'Subscribe' button and/or the visitor shares the link on Facebook for everyone to visit. I did both! If the letter 'O' reminds you of a partner of a failed romance or something else not worth remembering, it's not yet too late to say 'O is for Orman' and it pays to follow the blog of this big and huggable O!

Having spent the last five years of my life in a school where you'd thank the gods for failing to acquire skin cancer (from extreme heat and lack of real airconditioning) and nervous breakdown (from over-acting and self-overrating college unstructors), you just can't imagine my relief when my days as a college student were over.

I finished Bachelor of Science in Business Administration, Major in Entrepreneurial Marketing. By the name of the degree conferred to me upon graduation, it is a given fact that the industry that my education would fit in is very unclear. And also, if possible, I refuse to be a second-class citizen of any country. In other words, I am unemployed, and I am an unproductive mass of life.

Don't get me wrong. I intend to land myself in a real job (which means, a job other than sitting in my mother's store and waiting for errands to wake me up from an open-eyed slumber). I have submitted an application to one of the good firms in the locality, and I think that they do not plan, in the next few decades, to respond to my application - which leaves me a lot of time to think about the real job to get. It is not all the time that monetary compensation matters in every job that we wish to be in. The satisfaction brought to us by things more valuable than money matter more, and will ultimately dictate the length of time that we will last as a worker of a firm - which is why I don't submit my application letters and CVs like promotional leaflets to every company possible. But no, now is not the time to think about the happiness factor of my future job. It's a beautiful weekend and I want to share some unimportant stuff!

I am a certified movie buff. When I was in college, when the cat is away and wallets were full, I always see to it that I get to watch at least one movie in a week. I always frequent the cinemas that the attendants at the ticket booths might have noticed me as one of their regular customers.

No matter how cockroachy the smell of the theaters are (not to mention the sticky floor and couples creating their own porno flicks in the dark corners of the theaters), I still love watching movies on the big screen. One cannot make me watch a Hollywood blockbuster on pirated DVD on a tiny-teeny TV set when I can wait for the movie to come to our local theaters. For me, movie-watching is all about experience. Of course, the Oscar factor of every movie that we watch definitely matters. But no matter how Oscar-winnerish a film is, if it was not watched in the beauty and splendor that its director was thinking about, the experience of watching a supposedly wonderful movie is crap.

It has been said that Filipino voters are getting smarter and smarter when it comes to choosing people who will be entrusted in running the severely-crippled government of this overly-populated nation. The thing is, in most of the people who desire to be choices in the selection of leaders, very few of them are smarter and better than the ones who were proven to be plain crap when it comes to leadership and governance. Most of the names that we can find on the lengthy ballot (not to mention the ridiculously-named party list aspirants whose stupid founders think that naming their group 111111-AAAAA would make them win) are the same people who have done nothing to save this almost God-forsaken country from severe poverty, misgovernance, and all sorts of problems that make the Filipino people think less of hope, and more of the worse.

I have had enough of seeing the Philippine Senate turn into an extravagantly-funded soap opera by getting proliferated with actors and actresses who do not have any know-how on how to run their marriages and the government, and those who act to be good but would suck when rated by a movie buff.

Since time immemorial, I've been seeing Michael Jackson, the King of Pop, doing his phenomenal dance moves, get in and out of court, but still be loved by millions of fans all over the world. His untimely death last year shocked the whole world and, for one last time, Michael Jackson became a sensation over the internet and all other media. I, of course, am one of those who were saddened by the untimely demise of the 'King of Pop'.

I have always wanted to see MJ himself doing the moves that has set the bar for the world of pop. Unfortunately, the best (we thought) that we could see of MJ are his numerous music videos and the movie 'This Is It', which contains the video footages of his supposed-to-be upcoming series of concerts.

Good thing is, there is an even bigger fan- Kenny Wizz- who has mastered the King of Pop's music and moves, and he's coming to General Santos City to prove to the world that Michael Jackson's music lives forever. Right, it's the Michael Jackson Tribute Concert in GenSan! What's more? Gensan News Online Mag, the region's number one blog, is now giving us a chance to be in the concert for free! Just give reasons Why Watching the Michael J Tribute Concert a Must. Here are mine:

This write-up, by this blog's author, was published in BAGWIS, the official student publication of MSU General Santos, Volume XXV, Number 2.

Over the years, the issue of sex and its consequences in a society where it shouldn’t be an issue in the first place is increasingly becoming heard of, increasingly becoming public, and increasingly becoming the norm, as compared to the Filipino society pictured in our history books. Sleepless nights, infant formulas, the delivery room, name in and a kilometer of paper won’t be enough to list all the names of those who are ready to testify about the joy of having sex and the pain of regret of having sex the night before. 

As college students in this university, many may find the pleasures of independence as fun, because no one will watch over their nasty deeds, and makes it pretty simple to perform such deeds. It’s as if they are overdoing the ‘go forth and multiply’ clause in a religious text. There is an increasing rate of pregnancies in this university amongst the students who do not even look old enough and ready enough to be mothers. A long story goes after defiling their bedrooms, boarding houses, the university’s dormitories and grass fields, even the ministry cottages in the university. The climax would be after using a home pregnancy kit from the friendly neighborhood drugstore and the cries of a newborn baby whose father is telling him that he’s not supposed to come out this year.