The Chef who accommodated the audience was no other than Niño Laus.

Aside from the delicious food that was presented to us and how we could DIY in our homes this Christmas season, the real star of the afternoon was the new lineup of Thermos Cookware!

I really thought that Thermos was all about Thermal Containers for beverages and food, but their product lineup has become so extensive that you can now cook using the Genuine Thermos Brand Cookware!

Advantages of Thermos Cookware

The Genuine Thermos Brand Cookware may come with a hefty price tag at first look, but you’ll later on realize that it’s actually pretty reasonable. You don’t get high quality products for free, you know

Thermal Cookware is basically a slow cooker or crock-pot that doesn’t need any electricity or the like and it has many advantages, especially for people who are camping, caravanning or four wheel driving. One big advantage is that you use a lot less gas, and with wood fires becoming harder and harder to use because of fire restrictions imposed by national parks, reserves or councils, campers find themselves cooking more and more on the gas stovetop. And it’s not always easy to just drop into the nearest gas refill store or garage and get the gas bottle topped up or exchanged.

For more information and updates about The Genuine Thermos Brand Cookware or other products, follow them on Twitter. If you’d like to see some demo videos yourself, refer to this link.

Photos, as always courtesy of: The Traveling Nomad

I may have lived in Davao City ever since I was still in Grade 5, yet I was never able to attend to a Christmas opening here in Davao, not even the first Pasko Fiesta opening that happened last year.

Now on its second run, the Christmas Season in Davao opened with a bang!

Featured Image courtesy of Renz Bulseco

Guada’s Villa Pension House in General Santos City

Your very own Student Blogger was one of the 8 or so bloggers who stayed at the Guada’s Villa. A place that will make you feel just like you’re at home, and in my case, even better

The whole house was well decorated and was very spacious. It has 3 rooms, including 1 master bedroom. Each of the other two rooms were priced at around 2,000 while the master bedroom comes in with a little price bump, but more aesthetics and comfort for those who need that extra feel.

No place better than Guada’s Villa

I have to agree with what my fellow blogger Mark has said about the luxos accommodation at the Guada’s Villa, that it has been by far the most pleasing and simply the best accommodation I’ve had in all 4 of my visits to the Tuna Capital.

Family and Barkada Packages

It’s not really named so, but you could rent the whole Guada’s Villa for 8,000 pesos. The price is very reasonable if you come with your family or group of friends to the place.
Guada’s Villa is located at 019 Blk. 3, Bughaw Street, Dadiangas Heights, General Santos City 9500.
For inquires and reservations, please contact +639495617664. You may also send them your queries online! Email them at alohablacksandbeach@yahoo.com

Photos are courtesy of Davao’s very own Traveling Nomad.

One word, epic… It was simply epic.

I’ve not only enjoined company from fellow Davao Bloggers and fellow Bloggers from Mindanao, but have learned a lot from all the outstanding speakers at the event. I’ll speak more on that later on, though.

It was a perfect affair for me, it was also the first event that I have attended with my fellow Pinoy Teens colleague and girlfriend, Princess Salan. Making it even more special.

BlogFest 2.0 was definitely a special event for her, because it was her first ever major blogging event. Lucky, her debut in the blogging scene happened in General Santos City!

On Philippine Blog Awards – Mindanao

I’m very happy that Faust and Olan from GeekyFaust.info and TheTravelTeller.com have won in their respective categories at the Philippine Blog Awards – Mindanao. They truly deserve the recognition for all their hard work and dedication; this goes out to all other nominees and winners from Mindanao!

On Philippine Blog Awards – National

Pinoy Teens has been nominated in two categories, the Readers and Bloggers Choice category at the Philippine Blog Awards 2011 – National. It makes me feel happy and has definitely boosted my motivation. It doesn’t look though as if Pinoy Teens is going to win anything in the nationwide scene just yet, maybe next year or so… but still, I’m very happy about it that we’ve passed the screening and are one of the finalists in those categories.

Thanks to everyone who believes in Pinoy Teens and has voted for Pinoy Teens.

Paramihan ng Likes for Readers Choice Award?

One thing that I can’t understand is the mechanics to vote for your favorite blog in the Readers Choice Award. I know, I’m not the only one who’s going to react on this, but this certainly doesn’t seem right. This doesn’t count for only the PBA nomination but for various other contest that have been going on at Facebook in the past. In my experience, whoever gets away with the most number of likes isn’t the one who is most preferred by readers.. but the one who campaigns best among their friends.

Indeed, I’m also promoting my entry to all my friends and colleagues as well. But this criteria for future “Readers Choice Awards” needs to change.

I think it’s best if next time, it won’t be based on likes, but on some certain criteria, like who has the most active readership (based on comments) on their most recent articles or so, or maybe based on how often certain articles have been shared or on how active ones blog has been over all and the average comments per article from one set date to another (Jan 2011 – Dec 2011, to avoid giving established blogs with thousands of comments an advantage like mine would have then).

Of course I’ll go with the flow and play the game with the most likes no matter how it’ll end up, but like I said above, it won’t be the one with the most outstanding readership that’ll win, but the one who campaigns best among their friends.

Disclaimer: I’m aware that one of my friends has also been nominated for the Readers Choice Award. But I just have to get this word out, because it’s so wrong, I already wrote about this in other contest, too.

• Meeting Avel and Orman – I’ve seen either of the two at some occasions throughout the year, but I’ve barely caught two birds with a single stone! Meh, it’s gonna be another bun, meat, bun (sandwich) photo again when I’m amidst the two!
• It’s going to be more epic than the former! – BlogFest 1.0 was one heck of an event already, and this one is looking to be much more fun, and more epic! I don’t intend to undermine or underrate the first version, hah, even that event was great, but the way things shape up and all the hype that’s going on around BlogFest 2.0, this is certainly the blogging event of the year in Mindanao!
• Davao Bloggers galore in Gensan! – Olan, Faust, Lyle, Brendel, Alma, you name ‘em! Most, of the Davao Bloggers will head out to our neighbors from General Santos City to attend this once in a life time event (next year it’ll be BlogFest 3.0, so technically, BlogFest 2.0 is a once in a lifetime event :p)!
• Pinoy Teens represented by my girlfriend – This will be the first major blogging event that my girlfriend will attend to, how lucky she must be that her debut blogging event is going to be the BlogFest! The first major event that I attended though, also happened in Gensan which dates back 3 years… Mindanao Bloggers Summit 2.0!
• Getting my blogging vibes back! – I’m so positive about it that after this event, I’m going to be ubber inspired to keep blogging again the way I used to.

The party was certainly one of the most memorable events that happened in my adventurous blogging journey this year. Not just because it was hosted by Globe, not just because it was only hosted for the active blogging community of Davao, but because of everyone who was present at the said affair.

Matagal tagal ko na rin hindi nakikita sina Lyle Santos, Winston and co. sa isang okasyon na hind tungkol sa launching ng isang bagong produkto o di kaya sa isang preskon… It felt good to be with like minded people and be away from my Mac. I have never laughed so naturally, so carelessly and freely in a long time. In other words, I started enjoying being a blogger again, isn’t that what using Globe is all about? Enjoying the life and have it the way you want it to be?

Renz, Karla, Natalie, Anj, Kuya Olan, Richard and Princess accompanied me on the table where I sat… and we’ve definitely been the loudest group of the 3 tables full of bloggers. We talked about various issues that were circulating around the web, exchanged a few ideas about our Davao Bloggers Christmas Party and of course, had a ton of fun while doing that. Tamang tama lang at nababawasan ang stress ko ngayon dahil dito.

Everything was right that evening, from the food we got a the Probinsya (which is located near Victoria Plaza) to the fun games and raffle draws.

The whole blogger group was invited to get close and seat near the center of the activity room. Our hosted asked us to count off 1 – 3. I belonged to group 1 which later on ended up with the third place. It may sound cool, but since there have been only 3 groups, getting third isn’t really that cool. :p

We had a quiz-style game. Our group has left a lot of points behind carelessly, answering supposed to be easy questions with far off answers like answering the question Where was A. Einstein born? with Israel instead of the more obvious and correct answer, Germany.

Pero hindi kami papatalo noh! the first round may have turned to be in favor of the other two groups, but it didn’t mean we weren’t competitive throughout the game. One of our members was even lucky enough to win a X2 in the first raffle draw of Globe.

Admittedly, the second round also didn’t ended up the way we expected it to be and I was pretty much helpless because I couldn’t relate to most, if not all of the questions given – but it was really a lot of fun.

Someone from the 3rd group then emerged as winner for the iPhone 3GS raffle draw.

It was ’round the 3rd part of the quiz when we excelled and closed in to the competition from table 3. We got as close as 1 point behind the leaders and 3 ahead of the second table.

Karla & Anj from Davao Bloggers - Princess & Kevin from Pinoy Teens

Yet we failed to keep the momentum going and ended up with a wimpy third, but of course not empty handed.

It’s all about Teamwork

The word teamwork has popped up every now and then throughout the evening. And it has really got me thinking. I remember the host saying that Globe is also exercising a good practice of teamwork across the large community they have. The games also proved to be that it a one-man show isn’t going to cut it because everyone was able to chime in something at some point… It was the effort of the team as  a whole that mattered at the end. And I believe that it was the effort of all the bloggers from this City that has earned the recognition of Globe to have such affair planned for us.

There’s more to come from Globe

People from Davao should be pretty excited and are probably really lucky about what Globe is planning for Davao City in the coming weeks. Like I’ve noted several times across some of my blogs… Davao has always been special to Globe, and the SUPERLAHAT20 Promo is the most solid proof of that. Yet there’s more, way more to come. Not only for the Mobile Users, but for people who are using other Globe services as well. I’m so excited about the slightly speedier internet from Globe since I have been a subscriber of their broadband service for several years already.

Don’t worry readers of Pinoy Teens. We’ll provide you with all the updates you want and need to read about Globe and their future plans. Dito ako nagsisimulang mag-iinternet and

Today, we’re a little closer in going all-Globe at Pinoy Teens, so, go lang ng go!**

Congratulations to Crislyn for winning an iPad 2!

**We are planning on something Globe related.

Photo Courtesy of Koya Andrew (ata) :p

My parents, particularly my mother disliked the idea of me traveling out of town. She’s scared because of all the hype we see on television that war is going on in Mindanao. Aside from that, my father (who had a stroke attack back in June) also dislikes the idea to travel out of town at the moment. We’re also very low on money. Even the Pinoy Teens’ funds is low on money. It’d be a terrible idea if I’d borrow some when I still have a  few payments due by the end of this month, right?

One of my sponsors for the month has backed out because they’ve got in trouble financially, too; and that really nailed MBS5 for me.

I was so excited, so eager to make it, but I was left with the ultimate decision by my parents… It’s going to be either BlogFest 2011 to which I travel with Princess Salan or the Mindanao Bloggers Summit.

Believe me, it was a tough choice to make, but reassessing our present situation and financial status of my parents [they are building a house], I just had to back out. We all have to make sacrifices sometimes!

I don’t know why I bothered writing this… but thanks to those who bothered to read it. I’m sorry for whoever expected me there. </3 Kitakits nalang sa BlogFest because that’s the blogging event of the year that I’m not gonna pass out on!

ps: I’m still looking forward to a press release of the event so I can still write about it

Software Freedom Day will happen on a Saturday, September 17, 2011 at the 6th Floor of the Finster Hall, at the Ateneo de Davao University’s Computer Studies Division. SFD is a celebration of free and open source software (foss) which is simultaneously going on all over the world.

It’s nothing new for me to talk during Software Freedom Day, more so, talk about WordPress. This is going to be my 3rd session about my favorite blogging tool in the span of 4 years (I missed SFD 2010)

Anyway, I’m very happy to tell you that I’ll be giving away a decent number of domain names during my talk… add to that 1 year hosting courtesy of my kind hosting provider, too.

One thing that makes me feel a bit tensed and confused though is that I’m not sure what kind of people I’ll have to engage with.. Will it be those geeks who already know most about WordPress? Bloggers who started at BlogSpot? People interested in getting started with WordPress?

It’s really hard to figure that one out before I have them before me. That’s why I broadened the scope of my 1 hour slot to talk not only about the basics of WordPress but to extend beyond the out of the box functions.

WordPress Basics and Beyond – Student Blogger Edition

I have the gut feel that I’m surely not the only one who opted to name his talk like such, but I see no better fit to it. This is what I plan to cover during my talk at the Ateneo de Davao University:

• WordPress Fundamental
• Background of WordPress
• Looking back at 2.x – 3.1
• Installing WordPress
• cPanel 1-click Installer
• Manual Install
• WordPress Basics
• The WordPress Dashboard
• Write Page
• Posts Area
• Pages Area
• Comments Area
• Settings Run Through
• Appearance
• Widget fiddling
• WordPress for the above average Joe
• Lucky 7
• 7 Favorite Free Themes
• 7 Must Have Plugins
• 7 Things to Check
• WordPress as CMS
• Custom Menus
• CMS-type Themes
• Making WordPress Faster
• The Fast Five Plugins
• WordPress Beyond
• WordPress Help
• Codex
• WPBeginner
• WPRecipes
• WordPress Themes
• PaddSolutions
• WordPress.org Theme Repository
• Elegant Themes
• Studio Press
• WooThemes
• WordPress Communities
• WPTavern
• Weblogtoolscollection
• WordPress.org
• WPCandy
• WordPress Hosting
• Eleven2
• Dreamhost
• Bluehost
• (if time allows) Blogging and the Blogger
• Why do you blog?
• Blogging Ethics
• SEO Basics
• GIVEAWAY Portion
• 1 x 1 year domain + hosting
• 3 x 1 year WordPress hosting
• 4 x 1 domain

It is no secret that we hate Justin.TV and uStream, but that is not without any valid reason. They are awesome websites to host your live streams at, but very bad for watching Boxing Matches, especially PVP fights. That is why I trust Sopcast for Pacquiao Live Streams

If you want to know more about how to watch the Pacquiao vs Clottey Live Stream, don’t hesitate to visit Pinoy Teens Online and get your daily doze of information about it today. As officially announced, we are going to release the official live stream channels this 9th of March.

Macy, Beige, Jemwel

There have been a few points that I could cite as good, and other memories that I’d like to recall the least about. I have to say that I still ended up as a winner after all, because I was able to give my website a little exposure, and because I was able to make some instant friends, like Jemwel, Macy and Beige, for example.

The struggle to get in front wasn’t that fun at all, for most of the teens in attendance. People pushing you from left and right, from the front and the back. It’s as if you were squeezed into a small can of sardines wherein hundreds of you need to fit in. It has caused a huge delay, I believe, which resulted in most of the later batch, including yours truly to undergo a very quick screening process, unlike many others who had the chance to speak up in front of the Director; like seen on the local TV Patrol.

I wonder how I could have survived the torment that came in from every angle, every side every few moments. The four of us, the three in the picture and yours truly just sticked together and eventually found a way to make it to the front, after quite some time of falling in line whilst dozen entered somewhere in between, ahead of us. We had to help each other, and the motto “no one should be left behind” has contributed much. Hey, we barely knew each other that time, but moments like that call for trust in each other and the option to rely on the other person, which all of us four did.

Though, at the time of the very audition itself upstairs at SM City Davao’s Activity Center, we were split into two separate groups, joined by 18 other teenagers, of which 1 in each group has made it, excluding the four of us. It sucks, but it wasn’t that painful at all; unlike some others who whined after their chances for becoming a PBB housemate were withdrawn. We felt happy despite not making it. We had one another to have a laugh about what happened earlier that day. It was truly, a unique experience that does not come along too often in life.

I didn’t made it this time, and I probably won’t take the same ridiculous audition process again, at least I can say, that I have tried. Have you?

More to be posted on Pinoy Teens Online in a while.