Ultimate Sooo Pinoy Blogger

Hey check this out! Who knows, you might win this, it’s an awesome prize for travel addicts and foodies like me! And besides, I’m also one of the judges!

Join the search for the Ultimate Sooo Pinoy Blogger and blog your way to the yummiest job in the Philippines

From the hearty goodness of Ilocano dinengdeng, to Cebu’s delectable pastries and fresh seafood, to the Maranaos’ spicy palapa, Filipino cuisine never fails to intrigue and entice visitors. With every local delicacy promising a unique gustatory experience, one of the best ways to experience the richness of our culture is through the taste buds. So what could be more exciting than to have the yummiest job in the Philippines: to take every foodie’s dream tour of sampling the specialties of 101 restaurants in 10 Philippine destinations, and promote pride in Filipino cuisine as the Ultimate Sooo Pinoy Blogger?

Reinforced by the new Sooo Pinoy ambassador, former Tourism Secretary Joseph “Ace” Durano, Unilever Food Solutions presents this exciting, one-of-a-kind contest that aims to showcase the Philippines’ rich culinary treasures as part of the Sooo Pinoy advocacy which encourages Filipinos to explore and embrace our diverse culinary identity by dining out at Filipino cuisine restaurants. One of the country’s keenest travelers and most fervent advocates of Filipino culture, Ace Durano believes that trying out Pinoy delicacies is a great way to discover all the delights that our islands have to offer. “Everyone who comes to the Philippines definitely has to savor the wealth of our cuisine,” he says. “Food has always been an important part of our culture, and our local specialties reflect the distinctiveness and diversity of each area. Filipinos thus have countless delicious reasons to be proud of our culinary heritage, which is something that we should strive to promote to the rest of the world.”

From October 5 to November 21, Food enthusiasts nationwide can get a shot at becoming the Ultimate Sooo Pinoy Blogger, simply by sharing their love of Filipino cuisine through their blogs. All you have to do is post a photo blog about your recent dining experience in a restaurant established in the Philippines. The blog entry should be at least 300 words long, and should be accompanied by at least three (3) food shots and a photo of you dining in the restaurant.

To join the search for the Ultimate Sooo Pinoy Blogger, just take a screen shot of your blog entry and email it to Sooo_Pinoy@yahoo.com. The email must also contain the blog post URL, the contestant’s name and mobile number, and the blog article itself (preferably in .doc or .docx format). The blog post must not be altered or deleted until December 15, 2011.

Contestants who submitted the most creative entries that reflect genuine passion for Filipino food and enthusiasm about promoting Filipino culture will qualify for the next round and be given further challenges. The lucky foodie who will be chosen after all the challenges will take a 30-day journey to 10 Philippine destinations to enjoy culinary treats in 101 restaurants, and will get to share his or her adventures with the world!

Share your gastronomic explorations now, and invite the rest of the world to have a taste of the Philippines. Proclaim and encourage Filipino pride as the Ultimate Sooo Pinoy Blogger – the yummiest job in the country!

For more details about the Ultimate Sooo Pinoy Blogger Mechanics, like us on Facebook at www.facebook/Sooopinoy

Like Creativity, Love Sony

Great news for photo buffs of any level! 3 photo themes, 3 chances to win great prizes!  From July to September 2011, Sony invites you to send in your photos according to the theme to win Sony products, a fine dining experience, a resort getaway and a shopping spree each worth up to US$ 1,000!  Winners from each theme can also get a chance to vie for the grand prize trip for 2 to Singapore for the ultimate Sony Year-end Party in December. Here’s how to join!

3 themes include – dining, travel and fashion (duration of submission for each and corresponding prizes are below).  We have just closed the submission of entries for the first theme (dining) and just opened the submission of entries for the 2^nd (travel) yesterday, samples of which are here: SONY FB PAGE.

1.      DINING: from 25 Jul to 21 Aug, three winners will be announced

·         Prizes for each winner = up to US$1000 OPUS Bar dining experience for 4 + 1 set of Cyber-shot W series

2.     TRAVEL: from 21 Aug to 11 Sep, three winners will be announced

·         Prizes for each winner = up to US$1000 Discovery Shores Boracay Travel Package (1 winner + 2 friends – full accommodation and flight)+ 1 set of Cyber-shot T series

3.     FASHION: from 12 Sep to 2 Oct, three winners will be announced

·         Prizes for each winner = up to US$1000 Shopping value at ZARA ( US$500 for winners and 3 friends, US$150 each of shopping vouchers) + 1 set of Sony Ericsson phone

4.     GRAND FINALE:

·         All 9 winners (3 from each theme) will compete for the Grand Finale by submitting 5 -10 pictures and a 30sec video using the products won(Cyber-shot and SE phone)(By 23^th  October)

·         FINALE Voting  24th Oct  – 31^th Oct

·         Prizes will be trip to Singapore Sony Year End Party worth US$1000 and a NEX camera.

·         Grand Finale Winner will be announced On 2^nd Nov

Again, for any questions regarding the details of Sony’s Youth Campaign, go to Sony’s Facebook page here → www.facebook.com/SonyPhilippines.

Free Phone Everyday For A Month On RXTMR!

Yup, you read it right, we’re giving away a free phone everyday, for a whole month, on The Morning Rush! If you’ve been listening since Monday, ChiChi And GiGi (Me and Gino) have been giving away a Nokia X1-01 to one of the four people who landed at number one on the day’s Top Ten. So here’s how it works: every single day, we have four hours, so four batches of ten, and four number ones. At 10am, right before we end the show, we raffle off the phone among the four number ones, and the one we pick, gets the prize. So we love it because it’s half-merit (since you need to land at number one of that hour) and half-chance (because we have nothing to do with the final choice of the winner).

Someone mentioned something we did years ago, when we gave a mug as a prize to each person who wins the top spot. And it became some sort of trophy, as to who wins the most mugs. It’s kind of the same now, only the prize is much better than a mug. So it’s a nice way to thank you guys who tirelessly join the Top Ten every single day. Who knows, tomorrow it might be you! Good luck guys!

World’s Ugliest Dog 2011

Yes, there is an actual annual contest. Don’t take it too seriously, the owners absolutely LOVE these dogs, they just want their babies to be the “best”, even at being the “worst”. And this year’s winner is:

YODA

We joke a lot about ugly this and ugly that, but I truly believe, as corny as it may sound, that beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Like I said, we probably wouldn’t want to have a dog that was just awarded the World’s Ugliest, but these owners absolutely adore these pets. So treat ugly as relative, like the stereotype women considered ugly here in the Philippines, but who make it big as supermodels in Europe. Anyway, check out the previous winners:

PRINCESS ABBY FRANCIS (2010)

PABST (2009)

GUS (2008)

ELWOOD (2007)

I actually find many of these dogs cute. But I must say, the 2006 winner kind of trumped everyone before or since. He’s kind of on a league of his own. I would keep any of the above dogs, especially this year’s winner, Yoda, since he’s got that crazy happy vibe, but the 2006 winner is downright scary. Anyway, you be the judge. Presenting…the World’s Ugliest Dog 2006 is…

are you ready…

Are you sure you’re ready…

Last chance…

SAM (2006)

He’s a bit scary, no? Sam was a blind pure-bred Chinese Crested hairless dog, and three time champion of this contest, 3 years in a row. I’m sure he’s a sweet dog, but I’d probably freak out if Sam popped up out of nowhere in the middle of the night as I get me a glass of water. BUT…if he were my dog, I’d love him anyways.

LUGAchris and Baby Yesha

By popular demand, I’m posting some of the concert pictures that our Daddy-Rapper sent me! And touching as it already is, he actually didn’t watch the concert. He let his wife go with baby Yesha to watch the concert while he waited outside for them. And he made us paunlak since we made him buyo to make a video! I was just joking that he should make a video, but I was surprised that on that day itself, he quickly made a video of what transpired on air and posted it on the comments box of my post about him. So just in case you missed it, I thought I should post it again:

Wow, LUGAchris is a multi-media artist! Again, inasmuch as he’s thanking us for all the love we’re throwing their way, we’d also like to thank him for sharing with us his talents! And we’d just like to throw it out there, Chris, if you can read this, when the new booth is done, and we finally have our “Last Saturday of the Month” EB, we hope you, your wife and baby Yesha could join us. I’m pretty sure a lot of your “fans” would want a photo-op with you guys.

Justin Bieber VIP Ticket Giveaway Winner!

The rapping daddy won this contest hands down. Even the other contestants were conceding their own chances of winning when they heard this. Here is the winning song!

What made it extra special, is that we had loads of texts saying how they were laughing and tearing up at the same time, at how sweet it is for a father to go through all that just to win tickets for his beloved daughter. So many of our listeners were in tears after hearing this. So I hope the decision was unanimous. If it were only possible, we would give tickets to more, but we only had 2 to give away. It was a feel-good contest, and we were overwhelmed by the response! We never thought so many people would join and that the quality of the entries would be so good! Again, thanks for joining, hope your guys join again in future contests, and again, congrats to our winner daddy Christian and Baby Yesha! Hope you enjoy the concert tonight!

Justin Bieber VIP Tickets Giveaway!

Yup, you read it right, we’re giving away 2 VIP tickets to the Justin Bieber My World Tour on May 10, at the SM Mall Of Asia Concert Grounds! How do you win? Well, we wanted the true Beliebers to win this, so if you’re a Belieber of any age, gender, shape or size, just tell us why we should give you the VIP tickets, to the tune of any Justin Bieber song! Did you get that? Convince us why you should win the VIP tickets (whether you’re the biggest fan or your kid is begging you to take her) but you have to sing it to us to the tune of a JB song. Okay, here’s a LAME example: (to the tune of Justin bieber’s “Baby”) “I wanna win the tickets tickets tickets oh, but I’m not Ronnie Ricketts Ricketts Ricketts no…” Uhm…something like that. You can make it a whole song, maybe just a snippet, or you can make an entire music video if you want! Just make sure it’s Bieberrific! So send us your music video or a simple mp3 of your composition, and email it to us at rxtmr@yahoo.com! Deadline is on May 9, Monday, at 7pm, so we can still go through your entires. Announcement of the winner is on the concert day itself, May 10, during The Morning Rush. We’ll air some of the best entries, then announce the winner of the tickets. Hurry, start composing your Bieber masterpieces, record yourself and email them to us! Now!!!

Photo Contest (The WINNER!!!)

Oh great, I rush home so I could post the winner of the photo contest before 12nn, and within 5 minutes of getting home, the rotating brownout hits.  So it’s a couple of hours delayed, but here it is.  We announced this morning who the winner was, but this is the first time we could show you the picture.  And so, getting the Canon Powershot A480, the winner is…Gem So!!! Woot!!!

The Winning Photo

Sent by: Gem So

Taken in Mauban, Quezon, just last March 2010, this photo had everything we were looking for.  It’s definitely bursting with the summer theme and the accompanying fun that comes with it, and The Morning Rush and 93.1 taking equal billing with the subject.  People who like taking jump shots would have an idea of how this was done.  It was just done so effortlessly, that he made it look like he was floating on air.  Delle was incredulous as to how this photo was taken.  She said she doesn’t even see foot marks on the sand where he jumped from.  She was asking assurance from me that it wasn’t just photoshopped.  We were both infected by the sheer joy of the picture, it made us feel like we were part of their barkada, just goofing about, taking pictures on the sand, which basically encompasses, for many of us sun-lovers at least, what summer should be.  So congratulations again to Gem for winning the camera, a very much deserved win, in our humble opinion, of course.  The decision was unanimous, no argument between us.  We should do this more often!  Hehehe, it was fun…

Again, thank you so much to EVERYONE who joined the photo challenge!  We didn’t expect such a strong response and were happily amazed at just how good a lot of the photos were.  It was heartwarming how you guys took time and a lot of effort to join the contest.  We promise to come up with other stuff for you in the near future.  Just to give you a peek at how fun Gem’s photos were, let me post some of the other photos she sent in, all fabulously fun:

And another serious contender, probably highest on the creativity scale:

They put the hermit crab on the paper with the RX 93.1 written on it, until it came out to peek, then took the shot. Genius!  So as you can see, even just choosing among her shots was difficult enough, with so many good photos.  Again, congrats to our winner Gem!!!

Photo Contest (The Runners-up)

Wow, this is the longest stretch of not posting anything on my blog since I started, I think. The 4-day Holy Week holiday and the stressful back-to-work Monday and Tuesday just didn’t give me enough time to post anything!  Plus I really needed to rifle through all the entries that you sent us.  We were able to choose a winner already yesterday, but the full show earlier just didn’t give us a chance to announce it.  So allow me to post the best photos that didn’t quite make it (I wish we had more cameras to give away because you guys outdid yourselves).

We received more than 300 photos from you guys, from about 200 emails!  The response was just amazing.  So let us thank you for making this little photo project a huge success.  We really had a hard time choosing though, because the pictures you sent us were all good, but in different ways.  Some were great photos, almost pro-level, but they weren’t as creative as the others.  While some were extremely creative, but the execution wasn’t as good.  So we really had to hem and haw in choosing the one photo which we felt, given all considerations, bested the rest of the competition.  Again, this is a subjective “best”, so you may not necessarily agree with our decision.  But as they say, judges’ decision is final (judges being me and Delle).  But one thing we can guarantee you, is that we tried our very best to choose with as much objectivity and impartiality as we humanly can, based on the general parameters we gave you guys.  But that said, feel free to tell us which photos you think deserved to win, even if it wasn’t the one we chose.  It would just be interesting to hear your point of view.

Presenting — the runners-up.  I’ll post the winning photo tomorrow, after we announce the winner on-air on The Morning Rush, over Monster Radio RX 93.1.  I won’t post the full names, just in case the senders would rather that I’d not.  Then I’ll put some of our comments after.  In no particular order:

Sent by: “Mike Y.”

We really found this cute.  The only underwater entry sent in, so it got really high points for creativity and put really big smiles on our faces.  Hands-down, one of the serious contenders to win the prize.

Sent by: “Koulen A.”

This got high points for creativity as well.  We just hope the baby was safe at all times during the shoot.  We loved the little headset thing going on, and the baby wearing only diapers felt really summer-y.  Plus, the composition was really well thought of.

Sent by: “Lia T.”

I personally loved this one.  It had a really nice dramatic feel to it, as if the couple did the RX pebble thing, then the shot caught them as they walked away as the sun began to set.  Again, the composition was really nice.  Plus, it was a nice touch to put the heart there as the lovers walked away.  Nice.

Sent by: “Carlo R.”

This didn’t feel like it was taken specifically for the photo challenge, but the slumbook handwriting all over the picture just gave it an infectiously nice, joyful, summer feel.  Plus the writing was done so neatly and the concept turned a regular portrait into a really cute entry.  It really felt like a kid did all the writing!  And the actual photo was well shot: it was sharp, had good exposure, and a quirky composition.

Sent by: “Aileen S.”

This is the least summer-y of the entries, but it came with a touching story.  As the whole family was preparing for a summer vacation, they suddenly had to rush their mom to a hospital.  So they spent their summer caring for their mother.  They missed their vacation, but they wouldn’t have it any other way, than to be with their mom and the whole family. Awww…  This too, was a serious contender.  We’re suckers for stories like this…

Sent by: “Diana L.”

This made us laugh.  You can tell the amount of thought and preparation for this photo.  Loved the 70′s vibe that this photo reeked.  What really cracked me up was the little boy in shades with a sign saying: “My dream: gusto ko ng Canon 10MP”.  LOL!

Sent by: “Leng N.”

I definitely LOVED this one.  It’s the kind of picture I wished I had taken.  And it’s the only one that used ice cream as it’s summer theme.  Most had the beach, or the pool, but this had that “summer-in-the-city” feel that I simply loved.  Such a well-shot photo.

Sent by: “Melags”

Wow.  What a shot, right?  Again, I wish I had taken this shot.  The colors are gorgeous, the water frozen perfectly in an arch, this could very well be a print ad in a magazine for a sunblock or something.  There’s nothing in this picture that I don’t like.

Sent by: “Gerard D.”

Cuteness overload!  The little girl in the picture is simply adorable.  Lots of kid photos sent in, but this is one of the best.  The RX in the cellphone was a nice touch too.  One of the pictures that almost won as well.

Sent by: “Christopher L.”

One of Delle’s top picks.  What’s not to like?  Even the lettering put in during post-processing was so cleanly done.  Hobbyists like me always pray for clouds like these whenever we go shooting landscape photos.  Very nicely executed.

Sent by: “Joanna C.”

Probably the best-lit of all the photos taken.  It looks almost as if it was taken in a photo studio with lights hitting all the right spots!  Almost good enough to be a print ad.  Gorgeous photo, definitely one of the top contenders.  It felt like a crime not to award a photo like this.

That said, we do have our reasons why we chose ONE photo to  win over these equally deserving entries.  We weighed all the factors, and based on what we were looking for, and the criteria we gave you guys, we unanimously decided to award the Canon Powershot A480 to a photo I will post tomorrow.

Again, we welcome comments on all the photos I posted, but it won’t change the results.  It’ll just be nice to hear your call on it.

(Tomorrow: The WINNER!!!)

The Morning Rush Photo Contest!

Summer is all about vacations and holidays and having fun!  And what is a summer romp without pictures as proof?  We are giving away a Canon Powershot A480 to the person who can give us the BEST summer photograph with “Monster Radio RX 93.1″ or “The Morning Rush” (or both!) included somewhere in the picture.  The best or most creative, or most impressive, or funniest, or most dramatic, or strangest photo wins. We will give you 2 weekends to prepare for this, this weekend and next weekend, and by Monday, March 29, 2010, we’ll announce who wins the camera!  Email all of your photos to rxtmr@yahoo.com.

Again:

1.  The photo must be summer-themed — meaning it has to have summer elements in it: like the setting (like the beach or Baguio or a swimming pool), the outfits (like people in bikinis or board shorts or Hawaiian shirts), the story (like everyone in an office wearing beach clothes but are stuck in the city) — anything as long as it has summer as it’s theme.  Challenge your creativity.

2.  It may or may not include you (that’s up to you), it may or may not include people (it can be a summer landscape kind of photo), it may or may not include animals (maybe your dog in a bikini), or it can have as many people as you can fit in one frame (you can take a picture of hundreds of people on the beach from a chopper, for instance).  Again, use your creativity.

3.  It has to have “Monster Radio RX 93.1″ or “The Morning Rush” anywhere in the picture.  We want to make sure it’s not some old photo you have from a previous vacation.  We want this to be a photo project, so we want a fresh photo that you’ll take specifically for this challenge.  So find a way to incorporate either of the two (or both would even be better) somewhere in the picture.  Maybe the Monster sticker would be somewhere in the picture, or a man with a picket sign that says “The Morning Rush” somewhere in the background, or you can make like a spoof of a  summer movie poster.  Again, creativity will be the key.

4.  Keep the photo in the Philippines please.  Sorry to our friends abroad, but we wanted a Philippine summer theme.

5.  No age limit.  If an 8-year-old kid or a 90-year-old grandma takes a really nice snapshot, why not?

6.  You can use any type of camera, whether it’s a point and shoot, a fancy hi-tech DSLR, or even a lomo camera, would be fine.  We would also allow photo editing like photoshop, but it will still depend on your execution.  Just because it’s photoshopped doesn’t necessarily mean it’s better.  If done well then it’ll work, but if done badly then it’ll be worse than an unedited one.

7.  You can send in as many entries as you want per person.  You can send us different photos attacking the theme from different angles.  In the end, it’s as much an exercise in creativity as it is an exercise in photography skills.  Even if you’re not really into taking pictures, give it a try!  Who knows a simple picture might end up appealing to us (or a really fancy hi-tech one, for that matter).

8.  Send all your entries to rxtmr@yahoo.com.

Of course our decision will be final.  We will all have our own picks, but Delamar and I will promise to be as unbiased as humanly possible, taking everything into consideration when choosing the winner.  So, let’s have fun with this, and start sending us your photos!

(The Canon PowerShot A480 digital compact camera, is 25% smaller than its predecessor, and includes a new simplified button layout for ease of use. This well-reviewed entry-level compact houses a 10.0 Megapixel sensor, 2.5″ LCD, Canon’s DIGIC III processor and includes features such as Motion detection and Face Detection.)