This blog has been quiet for a while because I’ve been a bit busy the past 2 months. I started working as an information researcher for a private media firm in the construction industry so most of my time is spent at work and the 1 – 1 1/2 hour commutes in the morning and the afternoon. I ride LRT/Buendia based buses in the mornings and Batangas based buses in the afternoon. Sometimes I get lucky when I catch buses that allow discounted fares for regular commuters, but there are times when I have no choice but to get on whatever bus passes by to avoid being late for work.

I don’t have any complaints in the increase of bus fares since it’s part of life, what irks me are bus companies that charge fares with an extra P0.50.

For example, commuters from Tanauan to LRT/Buendia (and vice versa) are charged P95.50 on the ticket, but the conductors rarely give out P4.50 as change, most of the time you’ll only get P4.00. For each month I go to work, I get charged an additional P20.00 – P22.00 because I don’t receive an exact change.

I’d rather get a ticket that says P96.00 (which some buses do) so I wouldn’t feel cheated. P0.50 might be small change to some people, but if for example,  there are 1000 commuters daily:

P0.50*1000 = P500.00

That’s P500.00 daily additional profit for bus operators that is not reflected on the tickets. If those 1000 commuters work for 20-22 days a month like me:

P20.00*1000 = P20,000.00

That’s P20,000 monthly untaxed profit. I say untaxed because it’s not reflected in the bus tickets which works as our receipts. However, this problem is not exclusively for buses. There are also stores, groceries and fastfood chains doing this. They should always have a big bag of P0.25 coins each day so they can give exact changes.

To be fair to everyone, if they can’t round down their prices, they shouldn’t it round up.

Exact fares for Southbound buses, please? is an original content from Passive Income Blogging. If this text shows, it was copied without the original author's consent.

“Fashion meets function” is the tagline of Flirty Aprons, a very chic and unique apron you won’t be embarrassed to gift people with. I’ve always liked kawaii aprons especially when I watch anime series that have cafes as one of the main hangout areas of the main characters. Most of the aprons I see locally are plain and boring so when I saw those uber cute and sexy aprons in television shows, I decided to look for the company that sells them. I only found them recently while I was looking for a great gift for family and friends since Mother’s Day is coming up soon and June weddings are just around the corner.

I checked out their site and found several chic designs that I’d love to order when my aunt leaves back for the US. These are the styles I loved:

Pearl Style - Flirty Aprons for Women

The Pearl style is perfect for formal dinners. You don’t have to worry about your dress getting ruined if something spills while you’re carrying something from the kitchen to the dining table, plus it looks fabulous.

Pink Chocolate Style - Flirty Aprons for Women

Pink Chocolate is just too cute. Perfect for baking kawaii cupcakes and whimsical cakes. The colors make me want to bake some cupcakes right now.

Mint-a-liscious Style - Flirty Aprons for Women

The Mint-a-liscious style looks great for summer parties and picnics. Makes me think of cool and refreshing lemonade in th afternoon.

Sugar and Spice Style - Flirty Aprons for Women

Zebra Style - Flirty Aprons for Women

Queen of Everything Style - Flirty Aprons for Women

The Sugar and Spice, Zebra and Queen of Everything styles can also work for formal dinners. I think they look really posh and would work for chic cafes and bakeries where the servers wear aprons and white just wouldn’t cut it.

They also have men’s aprons. They come in black or red and have some very interesting word plays:

BBQ King Style - Aprons For Men

Extremely Hot Style - Flirty Aprons For Men

Grill Sergeant Style - FlirtyAprons For Men

I also found several cute styles for children’s aprons, which is great for mother and daughter baking time or slumber+baking party. Some styles match the ones for the adult females while there are also other designs that are different.

I’m definitely getting myself at least two designs. Baking and cooking is fun, but plain aprons are boring. Having these kawaii aprons would definitely make baking parties and bake sales fun. These pretty and flirty aprons catch people’s attention and is a good topic for conversation.

Flirty Aprons: Fashionable Kawaii Aprons is an original content from Passive Income Blogging. If this text shows, it was copied without the original author's consent.

I posted about browser games I play a year or two ago. I still play Pony Island, which isn’t a free horse riding game but a pay to play virtual horse game that focuses on generating, feeding, contesting and breeding ponies. It can get boring after a while so I also look for other free horse games or alternatives like house building games, dating simulation games and bowling games online to alleviate my boredom. My old computer can’t handle 3d online games so I try to look for browser games that aren’t resource hogs.

My younger siblings also enjoy playing online games. My younger brother usually plays Pokemon games online and Spider Man games but he is always on the hunt of cool games for boys to share with his friends. He also likes to look for John Cena games, Power Rangers games and other fighting games online.

My younger sister enjoys playing hair salon games and Barbie makeover games. She enjoys cute dress up games because she enjoys drawing a lot. She’s a little addicted to kawaii series and her anime DVD collection is growing each day. Although lately she’s been trying to find Hannah Montana games, Justin Bieber games and High School Musical games. I think she’s been watching too much Disney channel shows the past few weeks. She’s been singing songs from Hannah Montana and HSM, she’s also been humming Bieber’s “Baby” a lot.

My other two sisters on the other hand want to find bmx games online and get a hold of the Michael Jackson game (which I’ve never heard of before since I’m not exactly a fan of his).  I’d rather join my younger brother play Pokemon online games.

Pokemon, Spiderman, Hannah Montana and Justin Bieber games. is an original content from Passive Income Blogging. If this text shows, it was copied without the original author's consent.

I learned about Facebook around 2006 when someone mentioned in the the Off Topic forum of GoPets. Back then Facebook was a private social networking site that only allowed individuals from US companies, universities and organizations to join and connect with each other. I wasn’t able to sign-up immediately because I wasn’t in the US so I opted to be included in their mailing list so i would know when it would be open to other countries. I think I got the invitation back in 2007 and when I joined it wasn’t really populated with people and there weren’t much games apart from WarBook. The applications that used to generate a lot of interest were the ones that “generated” some sort of compensation for posts, clicks and surveys; like the apps launched by dNeero, AceBucks and ClixSense. I think it was ClixSense if I remember it correctly. I couldn’t find anyone I know there because not many people have joined it yet. The only time I got a real friend there was when I started blogging and learned that one of my blogger friends had a Facebook account which she also used for gaining traffic to her blogs through social networking and online marketing.

Fast-forward to 2009 and Facebook has really evolved from a small and relatively silent community into a large and thriving community. Dynamic applications started to sprout and many developers started creating games that attracted even more people to join. I admit that even I got addicted to the games in Facebook last year, especially with Pet Society, Mafia Wars, Farm Town, Restaurant City, Country Life and other tycoon games. After some time the novelty of the games faded after a lot of copycat games came out. It got boring when developers started using the same “formula” for all their games and simply tweaked the theme and graphics to create a “new” game. I used to be very active in adding people just for the sake of advancing on the games I played.

Lately, I’ve only used Facebook to keep in touch with friends and relatives. I’ve lost interest in the gaming aspect of FB because I realized I was neglecting a lot of my websites for something that isn’t beneficial to me at all. I’m glad to say that I have weaned myself from Facebook and only use it every now and then to communicate with friends and relatives.

Facebook-ing Pinoys. is an original content from Passive Income Blogging. If this text shows, it was copied without the original author's consent.

I passed by this blog post by WowBatangas a few days ago and wondered whether I should join or not. I was thinking maybe I should just pass this opportunity to meet other bloggers from Batangas because I haven’t been feeling the whole week due to severe coughs and sore throat. My cough and sore throat has eased so I’m thinking its a sign that I can go tomorrow to the first Batangas Bloggers Grand EyeBall which will be held in SM Lipa’s Event Center which starts at 4pm.

I figured this would be another awesome SM experience since it will be the first time I will really get to know Batangas-based bloggers (or would-be bloggers). I already met some lovely people last year when we had our WordPress Pinoy‘s EB’s when Ate Kengkay and Ate Beng came to the Philippines.

SM (or what I usually called Shoemart when I was still little) has been part of my life even before I started to go to school. I remember fondly going to SM Cubao a lot when I was little because my grandmother on my Dad’s side lived in Cubao. We’d stroll around the mall to find new toys that caught my fancy and just spend some family time together on Sundays there.

A few years passed and I started going to school in Tanauan. I always got excited when the month of May would roll by because it was time for new school supplies. It meant we would go to SM Cubao and shop for school supplies there. Then when they opened SM Southmall, shopping became easier for us because it was nearer. Dad started working in Alabang that time so we would visit him in Southridge, then we’d head off to Southmall after he was done with the things at work so we can eat and shop around.

A few years later, more malls popped and since ATC was nearer than Southmall, we’d opt going there. I missed SM by then but it was easier to go to ATC and Festival especially when the rush-hour starts. After a few more years, Robinson’s Lipa came and I was hoping we’d get an SM there as well because I grew up with SM. So when SM Lipa was opened, we were really happy that we can go there again as a family.Whenever we had extra funds, we would go out and eat together in SM. These were taken in Flavor’s of China and the other 3 ones were taken at the food court on another family bonding:

Then here are a few snapshots of our team’s get together in Yellow Cab and Greenwich early this year:

These are just part of my awesome experiences in SM malls. I have a lot more of them stored in my hard drive and my old school film photoalbums but it will take so much space. I had my birthday a couple of years ago in MOA with two of my friends and I’ve had other meet ups with blogger friends there as well apart from lunch and dinner dates with my sister.  SM has been a part of my life and will continue to do so because my life’s journey has been made more special with the memories I’ve had in SM malls.

Do you have an “Awesome SM Experience”? is an original content from Passive Income Blogging. If this text shows, it was copied without the original author's consent.

The official list of candidates for graduation on DLSU’s 156th Commencement Exercises has finally been posted and my name is there! I’ve been waiting for it to come out today to confirm my graduation. So I will officially be graduating October 10, 2009 with the rest of the other students. I have been waiting for this day for a long time and I am very happy that I am finally getting my diploma in less than a month.

To all the other Octoberians, Congratulations!

156th Commencement Exercises here I come! is an original content from Passive Income Blogging. If this text shows, it was copied without the original author's consent.

It’s been quite sometime since I last posted and no, its not because I have been looking for work. Rather I had been swamped with so much paperwork and presentations at the university that all my blogs and websites has been placed on the backburner. However, I am quite ecstatic to announce that all the manual labor hardwork and sleepless weeks caused by the final two hell weeks before the final examinations has paid off. I am going to be graduating very soon and will be joining the ranks of the country’s unemployed.

Since graduation day is less than a month from now, I have started the employment hunt. I do know that I want to pursue baking (I really love it) but to be able to continuously experiment on recipes I need to have ingredients. As we all know, the main ingredients of cakes and other baked products are flour, butter, milk and eggs. It’s quite expensive so I have to find a stable source of income so I can fund my passion. I’ll try freelance writing again and hopefully it will be enough to fund my mass baking sprees. I kid you not. When I get the itch to bake, I prepare several batches for taste-testing and our neighbors benefit from it. People at home are already sick of eating my baking experiments that they have stopped wanting cake.

Wish me luck on my hunt. Hopefully I get lots of writing opportunities so I can pursue my baking.

The employment hunt has begun. is an original content from Passive Income Blogging. If this text shows, it was copied without the original author's consent.

I was just wondering,

Are BPO’s allowed by law here in the Philippines to terminate an employee rather than accept their resignation (which is backed with a medical reason) when they have a target attrition rate limit during a specific period?

Termination due to attrition rate quotas? is an original content from Passive Income Blogging. If this text shows, it was copied without the original author's consent.

Rainy days are here again and apart from the seasonal regular influenza, it has brought with it the A(H1N1). Classes have been suspended, communities have been alerted and safety precautions have been dispersed. I just hope we don’t get too much casualties from this one.

Attack of the Flu. is an original content from Passive Income Blogging. If this text shows, it was copied without the original author's consent.

This is most probably the hottest summer we’ve had. I’ve never felt this extreme heat from the previous summers. That’s why it isn’t surprising to see people (Filipinos and expats alike) flock the bountiful beaches in the Philippines despite the economic crunch that everyone seems to be experiencing around the globe.

This summer well-know places are making noises again such as Boracay, Palawan, Puerto Galera, Bohol and the beaches in Batangas. Taking a vacation to these spots were a no-brainer especially with the Cebu Pacific flight promos they had back in March. Who wouldn’t want to travel with those low (and I mean LOW) low rates? To those who didn’t choose to fly (well Batangas/Puerto didn’t need flying but I digress), many visited Baguio, Sagada, Vigan, Laoag and Pagudpod as well since many people like heading to the north during the Holy Week season. Even our family used to do that before.

My sister has an upcoming trip to Caramoan Island this end of April where they will also visit the CamSur Watersports Complex more known as CWC. Basically CWC is summed up in their website as:

The Camsur Watersports Comlex is the first world-class watersports complex in the Philippines and in Asia. CWC aims to bring cable skiing to a whole new level and attract watersports enthusiasts from all over the world with its top of the line facilities and relaxing environment. This six (6)-hectare complex, with its 6-point cable ski system, is sure to draw guests, riders and spectators by the thousands. Because of good weather conditions, cable skiing in the park can be done all year round.

Since my friends are a little busy this summer we have decided to go somewhere near home which is Puerto Galera. We chose May since its not as packed up as April and our schedeules only permit us to do it in May. You really can’t afford to not take a vacation in this intense heat. If you don’t have the cash to spare for out of town trips, you can simply head on to resorts near your place. To some, its not really the place but the company that makes your vacation a winner.

Summer Heat 2009: Literally intense. is an original content from Passive Income Blogging. If this text shows, it was copied without the original author's consent.