Please mark your calendars, dear people! My Arn‘s new novel is coming out in April 2006. We sent out about 15 teaser ads, each one sporting a different character/design, to different sets of email addies and thanks to Technorati‘s watchlist feature, so far I’ve seen 7 of them pop up in friends’ blogs (thank you, thank you!): ONE / TWO / THREE (A) (B) / FOUR / FIVE / SIX / SEVEN

Special thanks to Shei and Neva for helping us with the Tagalog translations (:

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And since I mentioned it above, don’t you just love Technorati? It’s sure a big leap from the vanity search phase we all went through when Google was new (admit it, I know you do it too) because, for one, it can list mentions of any topic, an assigned URL, or yes, your name in any blog according to “freshness”. We always use it to research on how our mag is doing in the blogosphere (and thru it we even learned that Arn and I figured in the #9 spot of Adam David’s list of top moments in comics, naks naman!) Go and sign up.

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Oh boy this is turning out to be a really busy 1st quarter… but definitely not too busy to meet up with dear friends, especially ones I haven’t seen in ages (months=ages).



One of my bestest pals Sheila was in town (to attend a creative guru’s Bora wedding) last week so we moved hell and high water to meet up for a long lunch at the Fort. Shei is based in Singapore and both she and Tippi had just returned from a month-long US trip (with their respective hubbies) so there was a lot of catching up to do! I missed you girls, let’s do it again soon ok?

Captions: 1. Sherbet Sundae: strawberry, lemon and pistachio hehe. 2. Shei and Tippi- both sought after in their respective fields! 3. Tips and I showing our identical ponytail clips (given by our friend Pia last Christmas).

Still on proud-wifey mode: my Arn designed and illustrated these Harajuku-style cartoon characters for a McDonald’s Singapore ad campaign promoting seaweed shaker fries and teppanyaki burgers* conceptualized by our good friends Mike and Sheila dela Cuesta of LB Sing late last year. Since it’s been 5 months already, I guess it’s safe to share the tv commercials with you — go click! one and two. Enjoy 😀

*Soundz good! Dear Ronald, won’t you please bring them to Manila too?

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Do you sometimes wonder if your physical neighbors are bloggers too? Now that almost everyone in the Philippines has access to the web, it certainly is possible that the person across from you at Sunday mass has a blog you’ve stumbled upon once or twice and you just didn’t know it. Well if everyone signs up at GeoURL, maybe we can find out. Try it, who knows we could be neighbors after all.

By the way, these are the people blogging less than 1 to up to 10km from where I am. Holler if you’re one of them!

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On the drawing board: two websites — one for an innovative picture studio run by dear friends, and the other for a talented wedding cake designer; some stuff for MB and of course the next issue of WE.

Thank you, Getty Images.

Gorillaz + Madonna: what an audio-visual feast huh??

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About a week ago, our good friend Earnest invited Arn to talk to the students of CSB’s School for Deaf Education and Applied Studies and what an experience that was. About 50 Deaf students (and a handful of hearing ones) showed up and “listened” to him talk about visual storytelling via able interpreter Nicky (who teaches at SDEAS). It surprised us that the kids actually knew who Arn was and that most of them have read his novels – After Eden in particular, and it was so touching when they all stayed about an hour after the talk just to ask him to sign their books, among other things. You can read more about what Arn talked about (bloopers included!) in Nikki’s post.



Pia left a comment in one of my phlog entries: “Isn’t sign language awesome?” I wholeheartedly agree. Nest and I were saying that somehow, it’s the ones who can’t speak who are able to communicate their feelings better. When Arn walked in amidst a roomful of silent, visual applause (in sign languange, a frantic waving of raised hands), I felt that it was the most genuine form of appreciation I’ve ever witnessed.

Thanks for inviting us over Nest, it was great seeing you and Indi and meeting Nicky and the students. (:

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My magazine-mates and I trooped over to Cebu last weekend to oversee stuff for our next issue. Some pics are in the phlog. And yes I took all those tourist-y shots because believe it or not, it was my first time to go as a tourist. The last time I was there was for the ’99 Ad Congress and my pals and I didn’t really have time to go around.