Luck strikes, sometimes. It was supposed to be a lazy day, but since I was invited to Nokia’s “Who Do You Think Are?” launch to introduce the 7210 Supernova and the 2680 slide, I had to move my butt quite earlier than usual to get there on time. I felt it was going to be a lucky day, so I went despite the rain.

Here’s a secret about Nokia events: you’re never supposed to miss them. They give away great prices, and that includes their latest phones! I was lucky enough to win one of two phones that day, the Nokia 2680 slide. It’s basically the same as the super–thin 2630 and the classic–looking 2600, but in a slider phone configuration. More importantly, it does not suffer from the reboot issues that plagued some of the earlier 2630 units. Overall, the Nokia 2680 is a basic phone in an attractive package. It was visually appealing that every time I showed it to someone, they couldn’t guess it retails for less than 5,000 pesos.

Too bad I’m not a two–phones–in–my–pocket kind of guy.

Of course you’ve heard of Bratpack the bag shop, right? They carry some of the most popular brands like Jansport, Hedgren, and Timbuk2. This week, they will be opening a new branch in Greenbelt 5 and to coincide with this event, they’ve been running some online promotions. I was fortunate enough to be a part of it, so I’m giving away a free Bratpack bag! Now read on to know what to do:

The Bratpack Bag Diaries

Readers may share their unique experiences that they have using their bags.

Their stories may be about the places that they’ve been to with their bags and how useful it was during their trips.

It could also be on how their bags served as their canvass and how it has been an expression for artistic freedom.

Aside from being a travel necessity and an outlet for artistic freedom, it is also a fashion accessory. Readers can also share on how their bags made them comfortable with their chosen styles.

The most unique and interesting answers will be given a Bratpack bag (Jansport, Timbuktu and Hedgren).

All you’ve got to do is leave a comment with your bag story, that’s it. The best story wins a bag. It doesn’t have to be as long as a novel, it just has to be worth every word. Considering the fact that I could count my readers with the fingers on my hands, your chances of winning wouldn’t be so bad.

You have two days until Friday (November 14) before we pick a winner. Now go on and comment.

It works. The M+K lensbaby I borrowed can take nice photos! But one in every hundred shots, I guess.

It’s not everyday we get the chance to make a difference in other people’s lives. When our friends Mar and Mic pitched the idea of conducting a medical mission for the Dumagats of Sierra Madre, we were told it was going to be a lot different than similar activities. The Dumagat people basically thrived in the mountains and around the river system in the Sierra Madre mountain range. Part of this huge ecosystem is Angat river and the watershed named after it.

With the help of the UP Outdoor Recreation Group (UP ORG), volunteer doctors and other medical practitioners went all the way to Norzagaray, Bulacan and took a one–hour boat ride to the campsite of our beneficiary community. Two days worth of medical work and some make–shift out–of–the–classroom activities for the children — we all managed to do as planned with just a bit more, but we could only hope that to them it all makes a difference.

We learned an important lesson in conducting such medical outreach endeavors: it is not easy to find available doctors. It’s not a question of desire or intent, almost every doctor we approached wanted to help. Unfortunately, as most of us know, these doctors have very irregular schedules that hardly allow them to set extra–curricular commitments. In fact, at the very last minute, some of them had to beg off due to other responsibilities. But it also meant we can keep in touch with a handful of them and hope that a favorable percentage would magically be free on the day of the medical mission itself.

Another challenge was specific to our doctors: instructions regarding medications cannot be given as they normally would. They couldn’t say “at 8 in the morning” or “7 in the evening,” reference to time was better described in terms of sunrise and sunset. And they cannot use measurements such as “500 mg of X medicine,” it was going to be “half of this tablet,” or “one of that.”

And you couldn’t write a prescription, most of them can’t read. Besides, there’s no drugstore remotely close for them to procure their medicines nor do they have the capacity to purchase them regularly even if they wanted.

It had us thinking if these indigenous people are better left to how they’ve lived their lives for the past decades, or if they should be schooled to the norms of “modern civilized society” as we’ve come to know. Either way, we as a people had something to lose.

I could start mentioning names who’ve helped make this huge project possible, but it would be unfair to others who were indirectly influential and effective in providing whatever they can. I wouldn’t be able to remember all the names anyway. Besides, this is not about tho ones who help, but those we have helped.

At the end of the day, that is what matters most.

The first time I heard from Matt about WordPress 2.7’s new interface in WordCamp Philippines, I was excited to see some new UI elements and concepts taking a more prominent role in the whole application. After all, blogs and web applications were supposed to be way ahead in adopting new approaches in designs and interfaces.

I waited for the trunk to finally hit 2.7 beta since I wasn’t into playing with nightly builds posting lorem ipsum entries on a non–public test blog. I wanted to use it in a real blog, with real content and data, used the way I would typically use WordPress. When I read about the availability of 2.7 Beta 1, I grabbed and installed it here on rebelpixel.com and my mobile devices blog.

I was initially unimpressed with the new sidebar–based navigation. After all, we’ve only had a top menu since the early days of WordPress. After a few minutes of tinkering, I realized the sidebar menu was actually collapsible to a narrow strip of icons, letting me focus on the task at hand. I was even surprised to discover that the icons were actually hover menus that made everything a lot easier to access.

Collapsible widgets are now back in the write screen; but what’s even cooler is that you can pick which widgets to display or hide, giving you a streamlined write interface that lets simply you get the work done. Media handling is now much better too; finally I’m using the built–in media manager instead of some dated old plugin to insert photos in my entries. It wins huge points from me as I use images in my entries more often than not.

WordPress 2.7 is looking good right now even in beta form. I can’t wait for the final release.

Nards and Aggie were among the first few I met when Joey invited me to a RockEd event. They certainly were very accommodating, just like most RockEd volunteers. I noticed I shared a common passion with them, they also loved taking photos. From then on, I’d never see them apart every time I’d get the chance to go to a RockEd activity. It was a surprise though when I got a call from Aggie telling me that they’d want me to take their photos on their wedding day. Of course I eagerly accepted the job with much excitement.

This was an impromptu prenup session when we visited their church a few weeks before the wedding. I had my camera in the car, so it was almost automatic to start shooting them anyway. We managed to steal a few shots before the rain came crashing.

Truth is, Hana and I shot their wedding day last Tuesday, but the photos from that day will have to wait a little more. They’ll be here very soon though, I promise.

The old theme I’ve been using for four years or so is now out of service. I’ve fondly called it “rev3″ as I consider it my third major design revision, though within it there were several micro–versions. I think I’ll be playing with this new thing I call “R8,” all in its single–column goodness. If you think it’s based on this and based on that, you’re right. It’s derived and inspired by all things design that I’ve come to love. And hate.

Pangga dito ka mag–comment.

In the early hours of dawn on the day of the wedding, it was raining so hard that it felt almost impossible for the weather to clear up. It was going to be Mimi & Karl’s Boracay wedding in the afternoon but with such terribly unpredictable showers, we were afraid it was gonna be far from perfect, not exactly as they planned it to be. But then again, maybe the rain was God’s sign, maybe it was God’s blessings.

There’s this myth that when a couple marries in Boracay, it rains if they’ve been bad people.

By the time we got up, the rain was already gone. It wasn’t as sunny as we always envision Boracay, but the clouds somehow cleared up just enough for it to be considered a sunny day. After lunch, you’d never know it rained so hard in the morning if you slept through the time the rain pounded the fine white sand.

And then let’s fast track to the afternoon ceremony. It was simply the most perfect wedding I’ve ever been to. Every single detail was spot on, and more importantly, everyone involved was in high spirits. As Mimi walked down the aisle, as everyone scrambled for photosa and despite all the activity, you can’t help but still hear Johnoy’s wonderful rendition of U2’s “All I Want Is You.” The whole ceremony was deeply emotional that by the time Mimi and Karl kissed for the first time as husband and wife, we were all teary eyed. And Karl was crying like a girl, as Jaemark puts it.

The sunset walk from the ceremony venue (the Elizalde’s beachfront property) to the reception at Discovery Shores was a brief but fun one. The mood was festive and everyone just couldn’t stop smiling. The whole reception setup was simply amazing, just as good as the ceremony itself.

By the end of the night, Mimi & Karl’s wedding was better spelled P-E-R-F-E-C-T-I-O-N.

P.S. I officially hate them for using “Baby I Love Your Way” and “All I Want Is You” because now Hana and I need to find something else just as beautiful and meaningful. Oh, I’m embedding Threelogy’s excellent onsite video from the wedding, I’m sure they wouldn’t mind.

I only started taking photos until late into the party, but here are some of them while the whole set is in the gallery.

After quite some time using Dreamhost’s shared hosting service, I finally moved most of my sites to a Linux VPS. Not that I’m extremely disappointed with Dreamhost, it just so happened that I’ve been hearing good praises on VPS hosting when compared to traditional shared hosting, especially with Slicehost. That, and the itch to play with programatic things that I can make or break all by myself.

It took me some time to finally bite the bullet, I had to be sure I wasn’t entirely clueless with what I’m diving into. It turns out it isn’t really as hard as I thought it would be, at least for now. I’ve got this weblog and Hana’s up and running. The blogger.ph subdomain blogs are also running on the same server now and I’ve only got a few more domains left in DreamHost. I think I’ll be keeping Dreamhost for a while as a contingency, anyway I think I will still be using them for domain registrations.

So let me tell you a few details on this VPS thingie. I’ve got Ubuntu Hardy Heron 8.04.1 running Nginx serving PHP, with the database predictably MySQL. WordPress is snappier than ever and runs without problems. iPAP also runs fine in this config. Since Nginx is not Apache and uses a different rewrite engine, you’d have to say goodbye to everything you learned on .htaccess rules. Fortunately, nice permalinks for WordPress are still doable with some googling. For email, I installed Postfix for server outgoing mail but have everything managed through Google Apps; a simpler solution that does the job with ease.

Now all I have to do is catch up on my writing.

I did tell you I was slated to speak at WordCamp Philippines last week, right? I’m not so sure if I managed to expound on my topic acceptably, but hopefully I gave fellow WordPress users an idea on how to approach the task of coding your own WordPress plugin. If in doubt, you can always refer to the “Writing a Plugin” article at the Codex, it was so good I used it as the outline for my discussion. I embedded my slides above, just in case you want to look at it. It’s up on slideshare if you wanna grab it or share it with other WordPress bloggers.

I demoed a plugin I call Strip! which allows you to remove/hide links from a given comment. Unlike similar plugins, you can undo this action at any time. I was supposed to make this plugin available earlier in the week but had to do other things, good thing Drew came looking for it so I had enough reason not to forget it. And for good measure, Jayvee has been playing with it since Monday and it seems to work good enough for him.

Now what is the use of the Strip! plugin? I occasionally receive gratuitous comments from readers that though they try to respond to the discussion for a given post, they still (desperately!) promote and link to totally unrelated material for no apparent reason, except for you–know–that–now–but–I–won’t–tell–you. Some may have completely relevant comments but provide spammy and made–for–AdSense type of sites for their homepage. You can simply delete or mark these comments as spam, but sometimes they are still integral to the discussion. So you just strip out all links for that comment, but leaving just the text and its context. Maybe you’d like to give it a try?

Hana took many photos during the conference but I haven’t gone through them just yet, but I’m sharing you just two for now:

I believe AJ took that photo of us. Now here’s another photo, this time I’m with Matt Mullenweg, the WordPress man himself!

I was very happy when I spoke to Matt and heard him say that he remembers this site for being one of the best–designed weblogs back in the early days of WordPress. Yep, the early days, when the plugins and themes features of WordPress were still to be conceptualized, the time when we still called blogs as weblogs. It was really nice to meet you and have you here in the Philippines Matt, we look forward to your next visit!

I’ll be uploading the rest of the photos soon and of course, a few more stories to share.

I’ll be speaking later at WordCamp Philippines 2008, discussing “Developing WordPress Plugins.” Wish me luck and see you there!

May isang umaga na tayo’y magsasama
Haya at halina sa alapaap
O anong sarap

So it was a promise after all. Alapaap’s surreal–sounding opening verse, sometimes omitted in our minds in favor of the upbeat chorus and other verses, was in hindsight an assurance that no matter what, against all odds, there is that one day when we’ll all be together, again. And it was 083008.

The Eraserheads reunion concert must’ve been one of the most awaited events in many people’s lives. I’ve been waiting for so long but never expected it this soon anyway. When I heard about it though, I had to accept it was going to be now.

The ensuing drama wouldn’t let things stay as simple as they should be though. There was the DOH and tobacco advertising issue that gave Marlboro/Philip Morris lots of free mileage, and then came the sad passing of Ely’s mother. When it seemed like it was too good to push through, something else had to come to cast a cloud of doubt on the whole thing. Since ticket details were never clear until just days before Saturday, I was almost resigned to the fact that I might actually miss the first (and probably only) Eraserheads reunion concert.

When I got Juned’s message that our friends at San Miguel through Red Horse have some tickets for a few dozen bloggers, it had me believing that maybe I was really destined to see the Eraserheads!

About two hours before the concert, we finally were in our Red Horse–badged Ely Buendia shirts with tickets ready. All we had to worry about now was where to get dinner so we could get in before the crowd thickens like a raging flood. More than 30 bloggers scrambled to grab a bite, rushing around the Bonifacio High Street area. Just a few minutes before 8PM, we were headed for the Patrons’ entrance.

Crowd ingress was smooth despite the long queue. Turns out the long lines were mostly due to insistent fans wanting to bring in long–zoom cameras and camcorders just to document this milestone in their lives. I left all my cameras in the car though, I knew they were prohibited and would only make things harder for me. Besides, there was no way I could grab decent shots from our section.

The 10–minute countdown seemed like too much at first, but as it got closer the crowd’s energy was just electric. After the short AVP, there was the band, finally, opening with what could possibly be their most popular song Alapaap. As they reached the first chorus, the crowd was jumping to the beat, oblivious to the rest of the world. All that mattered was the music.

It was only at that point that I felt that all was real, this is the Eraserheads together for a night to remember. Hana was right in front of me singing and trying to record a video on her phone, I was just so happy to have her by my side on that fateful night. And then I remembered Jonas, who’s probably the biggest Eraserheads fan I know. I dialed his number, all the way to Dubai Bahrain. I raised my phone up high just as Ely belted Ang daming bawal sa mundo, sinasakal nila tayo. Buksan ang puso at isipan, paliparin ang kamalayan.

After Alapaap, I could’ve walked out of there in nirvana. All I needed was one song from the Eraserheads, the music that is the soundtrack of my life.

***

There are a handful of great stories on the web about the Eraserheads reunion concert, here are some you might want to read:

• No stilettos for backstage pass: 083008, the Reunion Concert
• Gang’s Heads 2008
• jaydj’s article and great photos from the VIP area.
• Jayvee’s entry and video that actually caught me shouting (singing?) and all wild.
• In Closing, Thank You Eraserheads for the GREAT Time! (with Video)
• I have a few more photos aside from those used in this entry.
• And of course, Ely is okay.

This year’s Oktoberfest will be the first time San Miguel Beer goes beyond the typical one month celebration, now with 120 days of fiesta that goes on and on all over the country. Coinciding with the festival, San Miguel is coming out with a limited edition San Miguel Oktoberfest Beer — a new beer that’s full flavored yet lite bodied — sweetish in taste and smooth to the finish, as Juned would put it.

A few things on the Oktoberfest: two Guinness world record attempts, a Third Eye Blind concert, and the Oktoberfest Beer. Of course Juned could tell you more about it, I’ve only got photos from press launch.

Yes there’s a healthy way of doing hot pot dining, and Healthy Shabu Shabu is the place for you to try it. When I got the SMS invite for the opportunity to try it, I was apprehensive, worried that this might just be one of the few types of food and dining that I may not completely enjoy. Knowing that I have to go through the cooking process myself had me thinking if I should go through a fastfood value meal beforehand just in case I make a mess of my supposed dinner.

I was completely wrong. A short demo from our waiter/cook/attendant (what do we really call him?) had me tossing ingredients into the pot right away, enjoying every bit of the cooking process. More importantly, the eating part was a joy. The food was great and I couldn’t wait to try it again soon. Worried about the price, I asked and found out that it’s reasonably within the 500–peso range, a good deal considering the amount of food you’ll be eating.

I almost forgot, I’ve got an album of photos during and after the event.

Update: Entry edited for various grammar school violations. I suck.

I just fell
Don’t know why
Something is there
We can’t deny
Ooh, when I first knew
Was when I first looked at you

Happy anniversary pangga!