One lucky person will win six SEAIR gift-certificates to Busuanga!

30 May 2008     •     3 Comments
Daily Dose

We are giving away not one, not two, but six SEAIR gift certificates to Busuanga to one lucky person! This is the biggest give-away of Kutitots.Com and the SEAIR Adventure Club ever! You and five friends can fly to Busuanga with six SEAIR airfare gift certificates up for grabs!

SEAIR has been providing the longest-running uninterrupted service to Busuanga, and now provides the fastest flights with its Dornier 328 aircraft.

So how do you join? All you have to do is tell us why you want to go to Busuanga via SEAIR, by Friday, 20 June 2008, at 8:00 p.m. You can use your personal blog, Multiply, Friendster, or any other social networking site, or any website for that matter for as long as your entry has a link to the SEAIR website. The entry which best captures the attention of our judges will get the 6 gift certificates!

To let us know you joined this contest, post the link of your entry as a comment in SEAIR starts 35-minute flights to Northern Palawan. Like the previous raffle, make sure you place your full name in the name field since you will need a valid ID to claim the tickets if you win. The winner will be notified by e-mail so make sure you double check your e-mail address before submitting your comment. Tickets will be valid from now until 15 October 2008. Good luck!

So this is what’s it like to live in the suburbs

23 May 2008     •     7 Comments
Daily Dose

Even before the construction of our home was completed, my family and I had to move in already in our new home here in Antipolo. It hadn’t been easy, but we managed somehow. Amidst all the clangs and bangs of construction work, we somehow lived through the stressful two months—we’re just glad it’s over.

I guess when the construction noise and dust were gone, it was only then that I actually had the feel of what’s it like living “away from the city.” Now, I know what it means to live in the “suburbs.”

Morning view from our bedroom window

That’s the view Marc and I wake up to every morning. The tree you see is a fruit-bearing Indian mango tree. Pretty, isn’t it? Read more

How about a sneak peak?

19 May 2008     •     2 Comments
Family Stuff Tech Things

Sometimes, when things aren’t really done yet but already nearing completion, I can’t help but give a sneak peak. Yes, I’m excited (probably a bit too excited), but you can’t blame me. For somebody living in a one-room flat, this is a great improvement.

Everything is still a bit of a mess (we’ve had desks and cabinets customized, these won’t be done until the middle of the week), but the kitchen is more or less complete. Take a look!

Although it looks like just one house on the outside, Dad had the place renovated so Marc and I will have a “mini house” within a house of our own (separate kitchen, laundry, office, living room, bedroom). Anyway, more photos coming soon! For now, you might want to check out another sneak preview… A preview of Kutitots’ upcoming new design. Read more

A gift from my sister

16 May 2008     •     5 Comments
Family Stuff

I’m not sure if this is a side effect of her medication or underdeveloped frontal lobe, but my younger sister Joyce’s thinking is that of a thirteen-year-old ever since her schizophrenia started. Sometimes it seems like she’s “stuck” being young, and she doesn’t really like doing things a well 22-year-old would usually like to do. She’d rather watch cartoons or play with her PSP console than go out and party.

But even if my sister is sick, she’s actually more thoughtful than a “normal” person would be. She showed her deep appreciation every time I cooked for her by taking out Shantee for a walk for me if I’m too busy or helping me wash the dishes in our kitchen. She even made me a home-made card for my birthday. Last Wednesday when Joyce and our dad were taking out china and glasses out of the moving boxes, she went to my home office and gave me this:

I know, I know. It’s just a mug. And I would appreciate anything my sister gives me—because I know for a fact that it came from the heart. But there’s something more to this mug. I didn’t want to accept it at first, because I knew our late grandma gave it to her and that Lisa Simpson is her favorite character. But Joyce insisted, and said that this mug fit me. I turned the mug and this is what I saw… Read more

Shakey’s V-League’s big online PR mistake

14 May 2008     •     7 Comments
Tech Things

My husband Marc had been covering Shakey’s V-League volleyball games ever since he started his volleyball blog. He’d been successful gathering the “Friendster crowd,” a fan base that you’d probably call “photo-happy.”

Marc often tagged along my dad whenever he covered it for The Philippine Daily Inquirer, and got free training from one of the country’s best sports photographers in the process. Eventually, dad trusted him enough to forward one of his photos to Inquirer’s chief photographer, which gave Marc his first-ever print byline.

That Inquirer stint made Marc cover and take photos of V-League diligently for his blog and as a “standby” just in case Inquirer needed a photo but all of their photographers were busy covering more important things. He was so diligent that sometimes he forgot his work priorities.

Marc’s just one of the amateur photographers who covered V-League diligently and gave the league free online exposure—there are a lot of them out there. Some have blogs like Marc, while other share their photos through their social networking accounts. We bloggers know better than anyone how blogging can “light a fire and keep it going” in Public Relations (PR). Advertisers won’t waste their time and money inviting us to their events if we didn’t. But apparently, the management of Shakey’s V-League didn’t think the free online mileage they’ve been getting was important: Photographers can no longer take photos of their games unless they have a press pass, even if they paid for their own tickets. No one can take photos other than those with press pass, period. Read more

“Living by Water” by Ferdz Decena

12 May 2008     •     2 Comments
Daily Dose

Just because Ferdz totally lost his power of speech (literally) in the presence of Marimar star Marian Rivera, he’s going to get a free, straight-from-the-heart plug from me! Hehehe 😀

“Living by Water” would be Ferdz’s first one-man monochrome photo exhibit, which will be held at the Filipinas Heritage Library from May 12 (that’s today!) to May 27. Do drop by if you have time! I’ll definitely check it out myself one of these days.

Exhibit/ Gallery Schedule:
– May 12 (Opening Night) 6-8 pm
– Gallery Hours: Tuesday – Saturday 9am – 6pm
– May 23 9am – 4pm only

Just a few stuff about the exhibit (from Ferdz’s entry)…

Read more

My first traumatic Xoom experience

11 May 2008     •     18 Comments
Tech Things

I’ve been a regular user of Xoom‘s services for more than three years already. I primarily used it to receive money from my offshore freelance and corporate web design clients, but ever since Paypal became fully functional here in the Philippines, I’ve been using it to send money from my Paypal account.

I already tried using Paypal’s withdrawal service. Albeit free of charge (transaction fee is free if it’s more than a certain amount), it took so long to reflect on my account that Marc and I even thought that the money was already floating in space or that some schmuck got lucky and spent our money. No schmuck got lucky (fortunately), but we received the deposit about one and a half months after I initiated the transaction from my Paypal account.

So what we do now to “withdraw” our money from Paypal is through Xoom. From our Paypal account (which is under my name), we send the money to our Xoom account (which is under Marc’s name). There’s a transaction fee to pay, but at least the money gets deposited straight to our BPI (Bank of the Philippine Islands) account in a day or two if we made the transaction during a business day. We never had problems with Xoom or Paypal, until last week, that is. Read more

Events recap

10 May 2008     •     1 Comment
Tech Things

Sorry guys, I’ve been sick for the past two weeks, I haven’t really been able to do much. So this is going to be a “quickie” post. I have so much backlog in blogging lately, so I figured a short update will do. I’ve been meaning to post a new entry once I’ve finished my new design (I’m already in the coding phase!), but I got sick and some of these things can’t wait anymore.

Events recap for April

Read more

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