I’ve been offline for days, engaged in a psywar against my dad. Four days of not checking my email has left me with a serious case of backlog, and I’m trying my hardest to catch up on some things now. MIA FTW!
I don’t have the patience to do videos, so it has never crossed my mind to do a video blog. I always just upload my videos as is, effects and titles be damned. But this morning, when I transferred my shots to the laptop, I was inspired enough to open up Windows Movie Maker and dabble on a few technicalities of video editing. I figured I wouldn’t be able to do much with the default effects of movie maker, so I just slapped on a lousy introductory title, made a 2-second “credits,” and uploaded the whole thing on my Multiply — Mar Roxas’ speech during The 2008 Philippine Blog Awards night.
I don’t know what to do with the other video shots I took though. I want the whole pizazz that vloggers are known for — catchy beats (music), texts (dialogues, subtitles), the works (everything else). Sadly, there is no way in hell you can expect that from me. I always find a lot of things to distract me from doing the things I should be doing.
I don’t know if many of you know, but I was a volunteer last year as well as this year on PBA. And just like last year’s event, this years’ has also been getting a lot of criticism and “controversies.” This time, I don’t intend to involve myself in any of them, mainly because the arguments are so weak they’re already bordering on ridiculous everyone did their jobs the best they could, and I believe no one should be the judge of how hard they worked. However, I’m sad that some people felt cheated. As a passing comment, I have to make it clear that the criteria for judging the entries in the awards given out by sponsors may or may not be the same as the one used for the main awards. In a way, I do understand the concerns, but bitching about it will get no one nowhere. The trophies, recognition, and prestige have already been given to those who deserve them one way or another.
The 2008 Philippine Blog Awards saw a lot of improvements and would be another learning experience for the organizers and volunteers alike. It was a lot more formal and impressive, and I was in a lot more comfortable clothes and shoes. I loved that I could view the Manila Bay, and I loved that we had a room to do our thing. I wasn’t much help, but there were so many people who volunteered this year that someone would readily catch the work if one slacked off. I loved the diversity of the finalists in different categories. I loved the fact that most of the blogs I nominated were good enough in the judges’ eyes to make the cut (if you’re wondering, I nominated all blogs mentioned in this post but mine and, well, Benj’s).
I congratulate all the winners this year, most especially to the Bloggers’ Kapihan crew who winged it in their respective categories — Benjamin Espina for Personal (talk about passing on the title, haha), Sir Martin Perez for Personal - Single Post, Tonyo Cruz for News & Media.
Props to the organizers and volunteers for a job well done. Thanks so much to the attendees for making the event a successful one.
FAQ of the night: What can you say about Benj of Atheista.net winning in the Best Personal Blog Category?
Seriously, I can’t even remember how many times people asked me that question. Do I really have to say something about it? I think being one of the ones who applauded in support when his blog name came up as one of the finalists was answer enough (although to be perfectly honest about it, I wanted Bikoy.net to win, a sentiment that, apparently, I share with even Benj himself).
Photos taken by me are on this Multiply photo album. Enjoy.