Anniversary Via Meme

Memes aren't as popular as they once were. Thank God! hehe. Kidding. I actually enjoy doing memes.... as long as the meme is fun to do. Lately, the memes circulating in the blogosphere have not been that interesting so I've been avoiding them. ;) But the one my sis tagged me with recently, called "Why I Blog" looks promising. This one is similar to last year's "5 Reasons Why I Blog" meme except that this new version has 6 specific questions. I liked some of the questions and since I've just finished two years of blogging (about 5 months ago... hehe), what better way to mark that occasion by answering questions about blogging? So here's the questions:

1. Why did you start your blog?
Click here and here. Ok, that was easy. hehe.

2. How did you come up with your blog name?
Click here.

3. Do your friends and family know about your blog and what do they think?
My siblings say that its the only way they know what I'm up to. ;) Some friends know about it, while others don't. I don't tell them because they'll probably ask, "What's a blog?" hehe. Aside from my sis, I don't really know too many people in my personal life who actually blog. The only bloggers I know personally are the ones I've met through blogging. Most people just don't blog.

4. How do you write posts?
An idea will pop into my head about once a week. I then write a draft. If it's a good idea, I'll definitely have something posted in a day or two. If it's not a good idea, it'll probably just stay in draft form until who knows when.

I try to write one topic per post. I've experimented with writing different topics on the same post with mixed results. Sometimes the post is ok, but other times it seems like the post is just two or three half-baked ideas in one post. ;)

5. Have you ever had a troll or had to delete unkind comments?
Well, there is that guy who strongly disagreed with my review of 300. ;) Aside from him, I've received a few unkind or sarcastic comments, but never deleted them. If they really believe what they say, well, they're entitled to their opinion. I just ignored them. But if they make a good point (and are civil about it) while disagreeing with me, then I'll certainly try to respond.

Probably the angriest comment I ever got (bordering on racism, if that's the correct term) was in my Baguio earthquake post. Someone named "Kris" was ranting about how the Philippines will get what they deserve when the next big earthquake hits; how the country never learns from experience; why schools should be expanding elsewhere, not in Baguio; that "lowlanders" have no respect for Baguio, etc." She made some pretty good points, but the comment about "lowlanders" irked me a bit. I don't mind people disagreeing with me, but her comment was personal because my late dad was a "lowlander". In my view, her generalization about "lowlanders" essentially negated the good points she made. Pity.

6. Do you check your stats or care how many people read your blog. If you care how do you increase traffic?
I do check stats, but I only look at the referring link and the average number of visitors. I don't look at the visitor's location and try to figure out who's visiting.

To increase traffic, I joined Technorati and Pinoy Top Blogs. Not really sure how Technorati increases traffic because I rarely see any referring links from Technorati. With Pinoy Top Blogs, I added their banner to my page and it showed my rank among other blogs. When that website became Top Blogs, I decided not to add their new banner. Sure, it's good publicity to be listed in a blog ranking page like Top Blogs, but it also felt like a popularity contest. I don't want to blog with rankings in mind. Besides, I get enough visitors from people doing internet searches for "Surfing La Union" and "Philippine movie review". ;)

So there it is -- just some of my thoughts on blogging. Overall, year 2 was fun. I enjoyed the interaction and feedback from commenters. There were times when I thought I was done blogging (i.e. retire from blogging), but something interesting always came up. I appreciate everyone visiting.

Technorati tags: memes, blogging

21

Updated 4/21/08

I recently saw 21, a film about MIT students who use a card counting skill to make thousands of dollars by playing the card game 21 in Las Vegas. The students are trained by an MIT professor who has made money himself using the technique. The professor now considers himself retired but collects his share of the winnings from the students. Trying to stop them is the casino security team led by Cole Williams, played by Laurence Fishburne. In the film, those who were caught counting cards were beaten up in an underground cellar by Williams. The lead character, Ben Campbell, initially is reluctant to join the group but then changes his mind because he needs $300K to pay for his upcoming studies at Harvard Medical School.

I enjoyed the film. Of course, since the film was "inspired by true events", I wanted to find out more about what happened to the characters in the film. Did Campbell go on to Harvard medical school? What happened to the professor who masterminded the card counting group?

As it turns out, card counting is not illegal. Central to the film is the idea that card counting leads to people getting beaten up or possibly killed. In actuality, casinos may just refuse to patronize such customers. There's also the controversy surrounding the character's ethnicities. In real life, the characters were primarily Asians. In the film, they decided to make the lead guy a white guy and they gave two supporting roles to two Asians, who were given not-so-pleasing characteristics -- one was a kleptomaniac and one played the slot machines which was characterized as a game for losers. Some critics called changing the ethnicities in the movie as whitewashing.

The book, which the film is based on, written by Ben Mezrich called Bringing Down the House, also has its share of controversy. According to a Boston Globe report, the author took quite a bit of artistic license when writing the book (e.g. no one was ever beaten up by casino security, the use of composite characters in a supposed non-fiction work, etc.).

And to think I actually liked the film after viewing it. Serves me right for wanting to know more about the characters in real life. ;)

Update #1: Regarding the "whitewashing" of some Hollywood films, I found the following interesting quote from a blog called Pop + Politics:

Director Ed Zwick ... has made it (whitewashing) his bread and butter —-he has directed Glory, The Last Samurai, and Blood Diamond, all films based on the condescending premise that the natives, the savage other, need the white man to figure things out for them. Of course the natives end up teaching the white man something about himself (these being noble savages, of course), and in the end everybody is the better for it. I’m personally waiting for his epic on the struggle against apartheid in South Africa, sure to star Jake Gyllenhaal as, you know, the unsung force behind Nelson Mandela—the real reason those Africans were able to shake off apartheid.

Technorati tags: 21

Magazines

As voted by their readers, Maxim magazine has named Sarah Jessica Parker as the unsexiest woman alive. Ok, so maybe the poll was more than 6 months ago, but I just read about it recently when Parker was asked about it in a recent interview. I never had anything against Maxim or similar magazines like FHM. But the poll is, well, a bit mean-spirited. The poll seems to serve no purpose other than to hurt or put someone down. Now that's not very nice, is it? I'm reminded of the time when Rush Limbaugh was on The Late Show with David Letterman several years ago. Limbaugh was making fun of Hillary Clinton's photos in Vogue saying that she looked like a car hood ornament. Letterman replies, "You know, you can say that because you are the finest-looking human specimen on the planet." haha. So unless the "writers" of Maxim magazine and the guys who voted in this poll look like Tom Cruise or George Clooney, they should probably leave Sarah Jessica Parker alone.

In other media news, Baguio City Yearbook is now available at the local Baguio City outlets and soon-to-be available in bigger chain stores like National Bookstore. I haven't seen the issue yet, but judging by the table of contents, it looks like there's stories on Baguio's first carnival queen, the Ibaloi ethnic group, Baguio's building boom, and a look back at the 1990 Baguio earthquake. Oh, btw, that earthquake article was written by me. :D Editor Chi had seen my blog post on the subject and asked me to submit an article. Thanks, Chi. I hope I did justice to the subject. :)

Technorati tags: Maxim, Baguio City Yearbook