Zabadini Escapade

Apparently, everyone has heard of Zabadini except for me.  It was my first time in the persian restaurant and I instantly fell in love with the ambiance.  I love that we can sit on the carpet, play with the pillows and even eat on a low table as if we are cozily hanging out at home.  The restaurant manager told us that Zabadini means “Core of Goodness”…oh goody goody good.

Zabadini has its own in-house persian cat. he is 7 weeks old and flirty as hell. hehe

Lj's Graduation

My brother demanded that I be present in his kid’s graduation.  Normally, I’d be flattered, but he wants me there not as a guest but as his photographer. ugh!  When he first sent me a message, I did not answer.  To get his point across, he camped in my house and informed me we are to leave 9am the next day.  That’s the thing with little brothers — they are pretty insistent.

LJ is my little nephew who graduation in kindergarten last saturday. He was one of the students who graduated with merits.

Street Bubbles

I recently attended Discover Davao Photography Workshop by Jojie Alcantara and Rhonson Ng last March 19-20.  During the workshop Rhonson Ng showcased his photography works and one shot that captivated me was this photo of a person, on a sunset , blowing bubbles.  I said to myself that I would get one and opportunity came when my little brother invited me– well not really invited, but rather mandated me to take photos of his son graduating in – ehem – kindergarten.

National Bloggers Association (?)

A movement without structure cannot last. Fragmented movements self-destruct.  Eventually, bloggers will need to come together around particular issues. So, the formation of a National Bloggers Association (NBA) was no surprise. However, many bloggers across the Philippines find blogging personal not business.

The NBA was suggested in the aftermath of the "Big Bad Blogger Issue".  The issue concerned a marketing group earning hundreds of thousands of pesos by exploiting a blogger while paying him a only a few thousand pesos to gather fellow bloggers for events and encouraging them to write reviews. From this perspective, the unethical behaviour of the marketing group needs regulating.  They effectively sold the results achieved by the blogger without disclosing this and without fair compensation. So, was "Big Bad Blogger" really the culprit?  If anything, he is ignorant or naive--this blogger performed work without understanding the terms and the context undervalueing his worth as an "organizer" when the PR firm hired him not solely as a blogger but rather as a someone to deliver the results for their clients.

Filipino Accent Tutorial by Mikey Bustos

I find this video interesting.  It's amazing how simple, and funny, things like this sheds light to some trivial little misconceptions.  Yes, it was done in jest and what he talks about may not be accurate but it paints a certain picture as to why pinoys' accent, sometimes, is such.

1. Spanish colonialism - 300 years of spanish colonialism added influence to the pinoy's persepective and language.  The spanish language is heavily mandated by accent.  Words ending in a vowel; n or s are stressed on the first syllable -- e.g. libro, mesa, lunes.  Words ending in consonant (not N and S), the stress is on the last syllable -- e.g. papel, verdad

2. The Filipino Alphabet - Alibata,  our very own alphabet do not have an F or a TH