Coffee at Boni High Street with Certified Cam-whores

Last night, my former colleagues and I met at The Fort Global City (Bonifacio High Street, specifically). It was a long night; a bit tiring considering a very, very stressful work but it was fun. They had dinner at Cuillere (I wanted to join them but I was not hungry yet then, ‘courtesy’ of an intense meeting at work). They say the food was great, and I believe them — I’ll go back there one of these days to try their Dory-something.

Cristalena is enrolled in a phtography class and the other two collegues of mine, Ysay and EJ, are cam-whores. I won’t be posting their pics here as I’m sure they’ll be posting them in their won sites. But here are three shots that I really like. I don’t think they’ll be using these anyway, hehehe.

Now, if I can only find a residential place* somewhere there at The Fort… I think that would be great.
—
A very, very, very, very affordable place.

More Paid Networking Sites

In my previous post below, I mentioned sites that may help us bloggers to monetize or commercialize our blogs/sites. I found additionl sites while surfing the net last night. I took the liberty of deleting similar sites from my previous post.

Note - again - that I have no idea which site is a potential page rank killer.

 

 There! Good luck!

Red Fox WizBOOK: My Sister’s New Laptop

So, she bought a new laptop/notebook yesterday — a black Red Fox WizBOOK. It is so bbbbeautiful! It’s not a kick-ass laptop like the Ferrari of Acer (?) or that very thin laptop from Apple but I can see it’s far better in appearance and specs than my company-issued Dell before. See the specs:

• 1.6 GHz, Intel ATOM
• 80 Gig HD memory
• 1 Gig RAM
• Wifi ready
• and the usual stuff you receive from a not-so high-end laptop.

Red Fox WizBOOK: Available in black, white, and red/black 'combo'

The only (temporary) setback is that its OS is Linux, something we are all not so familiar at. I have a very little familiarity with it but not enough for me to be brave enough to meddle with its configurations (but I’m doing it anyway, hehehe). I might reformat it to Windows XP, though.
My sister wants to have a new laptop for a few reasons:

• I have a lot of writing/editing gigs and I cannot handle them anymore, so, I am giving a portion of this work to her.
• She wants to make a blog because she wants to have an online portfolio which she wants to use, well, for whatever reasons she may deem necessary. (I told her to apply to commercial paying Web sites for extra income.)
• She has some extra work from her regular job and she wants to maximize her time by working on them even if she’s not in the office.

And because our router is the wired one, we had to buy a long LAN cable for her, hehehe. We have to PCs at home already and the space is not enough for another table, so, the LAN cable network extends to anyplace in the house, much like a wireless connection. Nyahaha!

I originally intended to buy one on my own, but I think I’ll have to postpone that. I’ll just upgrade my desktop here in the meantime.

Monetize Your Blog through Blog Advertising

I was just thinking: What’s wrong with monetizing your blog? You get to develop your writing skills/capability, and you earn from it. And this is what I will do in this and another blog of mine. I’ll still maintain a paid-post-free blog (which is mostly on politics, governance, economic, foreign affairs, etc). But for this one and my i.PH account, well, I’ll be accepting ads from now on. I’ve already mentioned this by the way in my most recent post.

Anyway, I just want to share with my fellow bloggers a list of sites that offers paid blogs, sponsored reviews, and similar opportunities. I got this from another website (SOCIALSEO.com). I hope you’ll find something in this list. I already have a few assignments from a couple of these websites.

WARNING: I don’t know if any of these sites will have an effect to your page ranks or whatever, so, please, do your own research on that aspect.

If you want to look for more ways on how to monetize your blog, you may visit PinoyMoneyTalk.com. The site itself is a gold mine. Just be patient and read the articles there. Joining the discussions in their forum is even more productive.

Ciao!

About E[K]STRANGHERO

This was originally posted in my old blog.

1. I shoplifted not just once — SM, National Bookstore, Mercury, and a few other places. The best shoplifting experience was the one in National Bookstore. I wrote a short essay on that (justifying what I did, hehehe), submitted it to a newspaper. They published it, I received an honorarium (1K). A station manager of a radio station (AM, though) read my essay and he invited me to his radio show. It was a 2-hour discussion on shoplifting (participants, ako, a psychologist [nyahaha!], two [I think] store owners). I received 2K and a coffee mug. The book? The Brethren, John Grisham.

(1.5 I also guested in Mar Roxas’radio show when they needed someone for a discussion on election. I was the representative of the nonvoting [apathetic according to a few callers] sector.)

2. I used to dance. I was always a top pick by my teachers (peksman!) during school activities/festivities. Grade 3 - Lambada (believe it or not); Grade 4 - a folk dance; Grades 5 and 6 - something modern (and by ‘modern,’ this is possibly retro to some. Yikes!), but I cannot remember them; high school years (1st, 2nd) - dance troupe [super active] member.

3. I was an active member of League of Filipino Students (LFS) when I was in college, freshie. I almost joined them in the countryside. And believe it or not, I joined LFS because I thought my first college crush was their member, only to find out she’s from Gabriella. (And of course, they did not accept me in the group when I attempted to submit my application! Nyahaha!)

4. I was awarded Best in Christian Living in 1st year HS. During the same year, I was chosen to be the substitute teacher for our Christian Living class. (Once a year, our teachers rest for a week and allow ‘outstanding’ students to teach their class. Yeah, I was THAT good in Christian Living.) By next school year, I was a frequent visitor at the Mother Superior’s (our principal) office for… ahmmm… misdemeanor. Parang ganun. No, I did not turn to the dark side; my classmates just suddenly became too good… too effin’ good. Deym.

5. I can speak Russian, Japanese, and French (with fluency[?] of a 1- or 2-year-old kid, hehehe).

6. I have been to the Death Row many times, and I have talked to more than half of the inmates there. Part of a humanitarian project. Kool di ba?

7. In my first visit to UP, I and a friend walked from EDSA-Quezon Avenue to UP Registar’s Office. The bus driver (from Pampanga) told us to get off at Q. Ave., then, take a UP-bound jeep. Being the promdi that we were, we took off at Q. Ave, and fearing we might get lost, we followed, on foot, the jeepneys going to UP. (We dropped pieces of biscuits along the way to guide us back where we came from.

Blogging Can Buy You a House

When I first saw an article about their income from Google Adsense, I told myself I am going to make a very interesting blog that will allow me to buy at least a new cellphone. The story was so awesome that I really ‘planned’ to write a lot of interesting stuff that will help me get enough traffic, then, eventually, to income from affiliate marketing, Google Adsense, etc. I haven’t buy a thing yet. In fact, I haven’t earn anything yet from blogging. When I got my first two assignments (one on a shopping site and another on accessories for men), I respectfully declined them. My reason? I am so much concerned about ‘tainting’ my other blog with paid reviews and sponsored blogs. Deym. I shouldn’t have done that. Because had I started paid blogging this 2008, I might have bought something.. a gadget for myself from passive income. Hayyy…

Anyway, I will start accepting paid reviews this 2009, courtesy of two things:

• the global financial crisis — my stock portfolio has been badly hit and I think I need to cover this loses through other income (and I need to be ready for the next bull run, hehehe)
• and this article which narrated how the blogger got his house through blogging (the blogger is the administrator of PinoyMoneyTalk, a very interesting website/forum on online investing and other stuff)

Right now, I have 4 assignments due in 6 days. The reviews are not really that difficult. I am hoping this will give me the extra income I am looking for this 2009.

PS: I have a personal website where passive income is not a part. It is mostly for my ‘mind’s liberation.’ Collee graduation has its negative impacts, with mental stagnation being a primary concern.

I hope to write something like “Blogging Got me a New Condo” someday.