Year: 2008

Good Ol’ Writing Contests

Kikay and Ballex are both running writing contests right now.

Primary purpose of which is to increase content and content sources, and consequently lessen our loads so we can concentrate on newer, exciting stuff.

But hey if it helps weed out a few budding writers out there, why not, right? This is my hope I think, secretly. The country’s lack of focus on education over the past decades is starting to show. Where once we produced some of the highest touted, well educated people in Asia, the kids I encounter these days are near illiterate, and can’t tell a book from a paperweight.

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Saturday PM Panic

I was dead tired from the gym and was nodding off to sleep around 130pm last Sat when I heard a neighbour frantically banging on another neighbour’s door. It was enough to tear my aching lazy ass from bed to look out the window, where I immediately noticed the inordinate amount of smoke and ashes!!! flying around. Suddenly my body didn’t ache anymore, and after checking from the backside of our house my fears were confirmed.

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This is a personal blog, so I’ll go all personal..

.. and admit to the many many readers of this blog (all two of them), that I am unsure of what to do re the kids I used to coach. As I explained two posts ago (go on, scroll down before you continue reading this), we broke off our relationship on a terrible note. Primarily I was sore at a particular kid for not coming when I was calling out to him, effectively turning his back on me. This made my blood boil. I have had 3 coaches in my life, and I would never, ever ever ever in any situation no matter how bad, turn away from them. I would question them, beg and cajole and get snooty and bratty at them, but NEVER turn my back on them.

But on the other hand, they’re just kids (14 – 17). I neglected to mention that previous to the altercation that started the whole affair, that I was pretty sore at them for not following my instructions. I taught them pick and roll drills over and over, but they couldn’t, they wouldn’t execute. MY GOD I felt so frustrated, and I made sure they heard me when I told them so.

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Google’s Microsoftian Approach to Apps

Taking a very quick break to write thoughts about Google Apps. Quick as in Photoshop and my power editor are still open, so I’m writing this midstream into my work. I wanna write it down because surely I’ll forget.

Anyway I stumbled onto this Ars Technica Article re Google Apps, a thrust by Google to support independent application developers via handholding at the start of their project until they can spread their wings and fly so to speak. App development is a topic very close to my heart, being essentially the core of what I’m trying to do with the Exchanges, and having to do with the fact that I’m using subdomains under a main domain (exchange.ph), which I’ve always been convinced will eventually come together when time comes. As to how, I’ll keep that a secret, but it will one day.

So anyway, Google’s guys know this, and also know the considerable technical and cost issues one has to face whilst trying to get things going. I for example am paying a relatively tidy sum for hosting alone, just imagine the cost if I hired developers (I do approximately 90% of the work myself), and / or I wasn’t using a popular CMS. The more complicated the project, say it be Facebook, Imeem, or what Amazon Web Services are doing, the higher the cost. So Google pays for it all, along with provision of an authentication service (wow), a free database (although I gather from the article it isn’t a ‘traditional relational database’, what is it I wonder?), and Google’s BigTable Project among others.

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I’m not their Coach anymore

In our practice this morning one of my players got into a fight. It was getting ugly so I stopped the game and told the two to come over. I got the opposing player to stand with me, I was holding his wrist. I was calling out to my player Leo, and he wouldn’t come.

He stood around the edge of the court shuffling his feet and muttering nonsense, while everyone watching was jeering and having a whale of a time. I called him again and again to come over, to just stand beside me so he could hear what I’d say, but he didn’t come. Finally he along with my other players left without me. I patted the other player on the back, I think his name was AJ, and I told him he was a good boy. Coming together after a fight, especially a silly basketball one (they are all silly), is a good sign.

I think I’ve been doing my part for these kids, after coaching them on and off for two years we’ve come up with this:

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Post Bar Exam err.. Post

3 days after the announcement we’re still pretty happy. Ok about 10% happy and 90% relieved that it’s finally done and over with. I was with Jill on Friday when the announcement was supposed to have come out originally, learning it was postponed when it was too late and I was already on my way to her place. I’ve given it time to marinate in my brain and this is what I’ve come up with.

It’s good that in our society, there are still things difficult to achieve – I read a book a few months ago about Indiana State’s high school basketball program, the very one that produced the miracle team Milan, depicted in the film Hoosiers in 1954 (ok I know this sounds like I’m digressing into basketball talk but hear me out). Back in those days, Indiana high schools regardless of size compete in a single tournament for a single championship, making their win even more dramatic considering they only had a population of 165. This changed in the 90s when, due to overzealous parents (accdg to the book) who wanted their kids to taste a championship at least once in their lives, divided the tournament, resulting in different ‘championships’ throughout the state. Obviously this watered it down and consequently (possibly without their realizing it), negating the glory that came with it.

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Advice for Aspiring Freelance Writers and other Nonsense

I enjoyed this article about writing for peanuts because it hits the nail right on the head about what it is to live in the world of Internet freelance writing. The example mentioned is somewhat off though because the writer the article talked about earned a ‘measly’ $40.00 which by our standards would be pretty good.

The point of the article though is that there are thousands of writers out there making anything from pocket change to respectful amounts of dough writing for blogs, news websites, zines and others, mostly on the ‘net. I myself pay P200.00 / article and am willing to pay as much as P1,200 to P2,000 / month for more regular gigs, depending on quantity, quality and images. The great thing about it is most of our writers are even surprised they get paid at all, like the article says, they’re happy writing purely for passion (which is great because that’s what makes writers to begin with).

Sadly, I’ve never been able to take advantage of that myself. Coming from the old school, I earned only from print publications when I was still working freelance gigs (listed down in my About page). I earned as much as P3.5 to P5k per article then, so I squeezed it for all it was worth and wrote up to 4 to even 7 articles in one month during my really prolific periods. Even the broadsheet I wrote for, known for paying the lowest rate in the industry, at least paid P900 / article (approx $20.00).

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