On to blogging. I finally came out of my shell one day and decided to join a blogging summit. This post came out. While most folks were slapping their backs for a job well done, I was slapping people’s behind for not exerting more effort into it. I do think that the 5th Blogging Summit will be my last unless… Oh you know I have to put a vague qualifier there just in case.

Yesterday, I again (shucks) decided to join one of them summits. This time it’s WordCamp Philippines. And this time although I have to shell out some money, I set my expectations really, really low. I’m gonna be there for one thing and one thing only. SWAGs (Scientifically Wild Assed Guesses).  I’ve been mooning about those wordpress shirts and stickers and I’m hoping against hope that the organizers will be giving them away as freebies. My blogging world will be complete once I get to wear that shirt. I’m 100% sure of it. Babaw. 

Everthing should be fine right? I mean, how could I be disappointed when I’m only after the free stuff? But stupid me, I had to check out the speakers. Well you know, it’s a summit and there has to be speakers. Kinda got me curious so I clicked on the SPEAKERS link. And Holy Mother of Moses, the organizers were asking for volunteers. Volunteers! For Speakers! I forced myself to think of the freebies so some oxygen would flow to my brain.

Susmaryosep. It’s a good thing that I’m only after the freebies otherwise I’ll be totally freaking out. Wait a minute, I am freaking out. Well, kinda.

Alright, so why the overly melodramatic reaction to this approach? Well for one thing, if you wanna catch a whale of a speaker, you have to go to great lengths to get them. Captain Ahab didn’t just stand at the edge of whatever pier is nearby and ask Moby Dick to harpoon himself, he actually went to the ends of the world to go after that huge white whale.

But then again I may just be overreacting. Perhaps the organizers already have speakers and they’re just asking for volunteers as fillers. I sincerely hope that this is the case. If not, then I hope there’s plenty of beer to go around. Beer after all, makes everything including time go so much faster.

The event was fun! Too many bloggers congregated in one location that I feared the Philippine blogging universe would be reduced to nothingness if an atomic bomb were to be detonated in the middle of UP Diliman’s Malcolm Hall. Fortunately, nothing of that sort happened. But that would have been inevitable had prospective suicide bombers joined the event and stayed to listen to some of the speakers. I was even tempted to do the deed myself but I couldn’t stand the sight of blood so there.

Still, as I said, there was a heavy turnout! Bloggers were Plurking and Twittering while the summit was in full swing. Anyway, that I found myself trolling the halls of UP’s College of Law, smoking endless cigarettes, was courtesy of a blogging friend who had to forcefully drag me by the hair while my computer headset was still attached to my ears. Despite all my virtual kicking and screaming I was still delighted and touched that he cared enough to get me out of my room. You see, I seldom venture out of my room these days so the prospect of being inside another room with hundreds of bloggers was a bit of a daunting task. But I managed to compose myself, smooth my unruly hair, & actually listened to people talk.

Some of the things I heard were eye-openers like this guy from Yehey! who talked about the plethora of blogging events these days. I was like “Blogging events?! There are actually blogging events that bloggers are invited to? Dude, how come I didn’t know about these things?” I asked my friend. He looked at me as if I just crawled out under some prehistoric rock. He looked me in the eye, and said “Dude, those are invite only events. Only those big bloggers are invited. You, on the other hand, are small fry.” “Oh, now that you put it that way.” Bugger, that was a direct hit.

Bagongbotante’s presentation was a joy to listen to! I was about to zone out prior to his presentation expecting some trapo to spew mouthfuls of ostentatious self-aggrandizing crap but the guy’s delivery and the way he gave us a glimpse of the innerworking of the COMELEC was very refreshing, albeit naive in certain aspects. I particularly take exception to the restrictions (or the lack thereof) that they’ve set for Internet campaigns. Lay off personal blogs? Man that’s one big hole right there. I could probably come up with an Internet political campaign strategy the size of a Boeing 747 and fly it through that hole(actually, I think I will, and see if there’d be any takers). I kid you not.

Now here are some dicey parts.

The pre-program activity, asking the bloggers to come hither and introduce themselves and their blogs was hilarious. It was like watching amateur hour or a blogging version of Alcoholics Anonymous. Him I’m Spock and I’m a blogger. Really cracked me up. Would have been cool if a page in iblogph.com was set up to list the names and the blogs of the participants. Less hassle that way and saves lots of time.

Some of the speakers were, well, let me leave that hanging. But seriously folks, I don’t expect you guys to be raging, awesome presenters but c’mon, you could do better than that. Practice your presentation before you come on stage why doncha? And for pete’s sake, come prepared. You’re being asked to do a presentation and you do an impromptu speech? I don’t give a rat’s ass what your background is, if you’re gonna present before hundreds of folks who expect to learn from you, the least you can do is bring a presentation material even if it’s only a one-pager.

One of the unfortunate things about the summit was the glaring lack of time. There was not enough time allocated to Q&A which reminds me of school where the teacher shouts at the end of an exam ‘FINISHED OR UNFINISHED, PASS YOUR PAPER!’. Also, it was bad enough that there was very little time for questioning and yet some character decided to hog the microphone making the question and answer portion his personal playground. I think this is an area for improvement as well for organizers to make sure that other folks would have the chance to also ask questions. And no, saying that you can just ask questions during the breaks doesn’t cut it. Maybe next time there could be multiple locations so presentations can proceed simultaneously and people can just attend those presentations they’re interested in. Just a thought.

Overall, I think the summit, despite the time constraints, was successful. The organizers did a very good job of organizing the event, getting sponsors, and spreading the word through the pinoy blogosphere. That there were delegates coming from outside of Luzon was proof to that. There was even a party afterwards. Too bad the afterparty venue was a bit far from the summit location so a lot of participants weren’t able to make it. Still it was an awesome display of event planning and organizing. Hats off to you guys!

But now’s not the time to be thinking about nasty things, I’m sure in the grand scheme of things these folks would have a very special place in that not so very touristy spot in the great beyond.  One that smells of sulphur and brimstone.

This trip has burned enough holes in my pocket willingly and unwillingly.  I wouldn’t elaborate on the involuntary part as it would be a sob story that you can’t sell to the most diehard of Judy Ann Santos fans.  What’s done is done and I could just imagine that those bills fell out and some crocodile gobbled it up.  Still I’m glad that this is happening.  The last time I was there, I was confined to the scanty pleasures of Puerto Princesa.  Not that you would call the natural wonder of the underground river as flimsy but for a guy with serious claustrophobic tendencies, it’s a bloody deathtrap.  All the time I was inside that cave, I couldn’t stop thinking that it would indeed be a watery grave had we not come out of it sooner.  I couldn’t breath in there!  That’s why I couldn’t share my companions’ excitement about the prospect of seeing this much ballyhooed natural wonder.  I am not going back into that hell hole, thank you very much.

The thought about island hopping in the El Nido area however makes me dizzy from excitement.  I have already spent precious company hours searching each mentioned mini-island we will be visiting and by gosh they look perfect! I’ll be bringing my camera and shoot the hell out of those spots.

Oh well, this has gone long enough and I’m bloody late.

But when time that’s wasted from all the bitching is yours, i.e. after 5 pm, it’s time to get angry.

It’s bad enough that you have to wake up everyday, against your will, and force yourself to take a bath though there’s nothing more that you would have loved to do than go back to bed. It’s bad enough that you’re forced to sell 8 hours of your day to some nameless slavedriver who screws you over your salary, and then assigns another douchebag to send you something unpleasant so they could screw up your after-office life too. And it’s bad enough that you can’t do anything about it. Sure you can ignore it, but the seed of disgust has already been planted in your mind. Which means you will be bearing that foul thought in your head for the rest of the night.

I think it’s time to sue. Nah scratch that, you would have to be an idiot to go to court in this part of the world. This is not Boston where you can hire Allan Shore to go against Microsoft for not including an outlook option that allows the user to label his email with “THIS IS GOING TO SCREW YOUR DAY”. For god’s sake this is a country where children who are the object of a custody battle literally become parents themselves before cases are even concluded.

Or you can blog, and rant, and blow off steam. Like what I just did. Ta.