Ang Dabawenyo

I’m so happy to announce that — finally! — I’ve gotten around to completing my Japanese-language WordPress blog: (ManMaru Kükan or “Maru’s Space”). I’ve had my maruo.blogspot.com blog forever (and it’s actually doing very well, SEO-wise), but I’d always wanted to port it to WordPress — I just never had that push I needed to do it.

But last week I got a Japanese client who’s asked me to include their website as part of my deliverables. And one of my closest friends, Ichido Miyake, has also decided to start blogging already. He’s begun writing in English for Bob Martin’s Live in the Philippines Web magazine, and will soon publish his Japanese articles on his own blog. ••• Read on »

Tomorrow is my folks’ wedding anniversary, but my brother Jake, who’s in town for the long weekend, would be heading back to Manila already, so we decided to take Mom and Pop out for lunch today. We brought them to Picobello Ristorante Italiano, which is a great little place for family get-togethers.

Picobello’s offerings are some of the best you’ll ever find in Davao, whether you’re a fan of Italian food or not. Their pizzas sell like crazy, and their other pasta dishes are just heavenly! And to top it all off, Picobello’s waitstaff are well-trained and show it with their brand of service. ••• Read on »

Coffee Beans

“A coffee bean is the seed of the coffee plant (the pit inside the red or purple fruit). The fruits, coffee cherries or coffee berries, most commonly contain two stones with their flat sides together. Coffee beans consist mostly of endosperm that contains 0.8 - 2.5 % caffeine, which is one of the main reasons the plants are cultivated.”

Hops

“One of the four principal ingredients of beer, hops are flower cones added to beer as a bittering agent, a preservative, and an aromatic.”

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Undas. Kalag-kalag. Day of the Dead. Technically — according to the Catholic Church — 1 November is actually All Saints’ Day; it’s the day after that’s supposed to be the day for remembering our departed relatives. But in traditional practice (one might even say it’s now part of our culture), millions of Filipinos troop to cemeteries on the 1st of November. That’s why each year, the President has to declare that day a non-working holiday.

(This year, even 2 November has been declared a holiday, by virtue of its being sandwiched between a holiday and the weekend. Is it logical? Go ask business owners. But that’s for another post….) ••• Read on »

A couple of Dabawenyos have come up with a great new blog: PRC Board Exam Results. The idea germinated from the super-active minds of Winston Almendras (Batang Yagit) and Jehzeel Laurente (JehzLau Concepts). Only this month, Winston came up with the working site, with the objective of providing a centralized repository that provides nursing board exam results, among others. And then Jehz picked up on it right away, believing that it would provide a timely service to the burgeoning number of professionals in the Philippines. Immediately, they transferred the blog site to its own domain, prcboardexamresults.com. ••• Read on »

The 1st Mindanao Bloggers Summit was satisfyingly successful. We could’ve gotten more participants from more areas of Mindanao, but for a first-time effort for a unique event, I was happy with the turnout. The important thing is, my colleagues and I have gotten the ball rolling. I’m counting on the viral nature of blogs: each blogger has his or her own set of readers, so when he or she writes about the Summit and its objectives, the word gets around pretty quickly. ••• Read on »

Ang Dabawenyo is busy today at the…

1st Mindanao Bloggers Summit

I’m happy to see that my friend Tope Cubos and his wife Fritzie seem to be running a pretty sound operation in Fwendz Diner. Already they’re getting quite a few regular patrons — last night I overheard someone say that, at last, he had found a new hangout.

This isn’t surprising either. For one, the food is hands-down delicious. And cheap, to boot! The other day, Tope had us try a new item on the menu: a generous serving of chimichanga. It was really good and, as far as I could tell, was authentic Mexican fare. At 45 pesos per serving, it’s a steal! ••• Read on »

It’s been more than 6 months since Bankerohan Bridge (Gov. Generoso I) fell to ruin… yet today there’s not even a single pile driven to the ground for the new bridge. It’s as if the national government has no plans at all of restoring this vital infrastructure.

The Department of Public Works & Highways-Region 11 laments that there simply isn’t any money earmarked for the bridge. Wow… after half a year, still no action? It’s not a question of money. It’s a question of political will. Or the lack of it. ••• Read on »

It’s just three weeks to go before the 1st Mindanao Bloggers Summit, and I’m really excited about it! This is a first-of-its-kind event down South, and I’m proud that I’m part of the team that’s organizing it.

If you’d like to be part of this unique event on 27 October 2007, go ahead and register to join now. It’s free! But more importantly, it will be a venue for us to promote the true images of Mindanao to the world, via the power of our blogging voices. ••• Read on »