December 31, 2007

   As much as you say how much I have been part of your life, I would like to take this opportunity to tell you how much you have been a part of mine.

   In the three years that I’ve sat here to write, I always think of you.  You who come here regularly - some of you every day - to end your day on a better note.  I’ve heard some of your stories over the years.  There was one who got an administrative notice for wiring a proxy server to read what I have to write.  There was one who, after splitting up from her boyfriend, looked here to find some words of inspiration.  There are many others: a poignant one being that of the OFW who comes here every so often to read stories from home while talking to her family on a webcam.

   It hits me - hard - to think about the responsibility that has weighed down on my shoulders for these past three years that this blog is no longer just “mine,” but also yours as well.  Every so often, I think about the word “I,” and am tempted to replace it with “we.”  After all, every time I write about a “unique experience,” everyone else experiences it.  You, more than anyone else, experiences it.

   I enjoy - and continue to enjoy - writing.  Not because it’s therapeutic or anything, but because you make all this effort worthwhile.  And in 2008, you will most probably come back here and read what I have to say and end your days in a better note.

   From the get-go, there were always naysayers who told me that I would never amount to anything, that my writing style sucks, and that anyone can do what I do - even better.  I paid heed to those words, knowing that I can prove them wrong.  Needless to say, I didn’t: you proved them wrong.  You stayed here and you took me on.  You stayed.  When I felt left out knowing that the only thing I did for 11 years - campus journalism - was taken away from me because they didn’t think I belonged or I deserved it, you took me in.

   I do not know how to pay you guys back, knowing that what you did for the past three years cost you a lot.  But if anything, the only thing I can think about right now for all these years of you staying is for me to stay.

   All I’m saying is thank you.  Thank you for the support, the kindness, and the confidence.  Thank you.

Best regards for the New Year,

Marocharim

   The New Year is a time rife for firecrackers: before I left the house to buy fish food, I had to negotiate my way around a warzone of “piccolo,” “pla-pla” and “Judas Belt.”  While I like violent explosions as much as the next guy, I prefer to watch them from a safe distance.  Any residential back-alley on New Year’s Eve is a scene straight off a bad Chuck Norris movie, if you asked me.  Besides, I don’t want to be the next guy who goes to the emergency room not for actually lighting a firecracker, but for being a mere passer-by.

   Sure, I’ve lit my own fair share of firecrackers before, but after seeing somebody being mortally-wounded from a New Year’s explosion, I laid my hands off fireworks for good.  But I’m still pretty much guilty of handling boga, a plastic air cannon “powered” by compressed air and alcohol.  It’s explosive fun for the first few minutes, until firing blasts of high-pressure air becomes a bit boring.  Besides, there are a lot of interracial penis-related jokes you can make out of it, and it doesn’t make for a good bong.  Not that I condone or condemn the use of marijuana, though.

   Watching news reports from emergency rooms filled with people who lost their fingers from firecrackers has become an annual ritual for me.  Bloody carnage is something you would expect from suicide bombers a’la the one that claimed Benazir Bhutto’s life in Pakistan, but here it’s something you would expect on the first day of the year.  There’s something about carving spring chicken with these news reports on: the sight of a dismembered finger is enough to remind you of homemade hamonado.

   But I’m thinking that I’m better off celebrating the coming of 2008 playing old music by Prodigy.  Hence the title.

   As much as it applies to every damned year, 2007 has been an amazing year.  There are highs (so to speak), lows, and everything in between that made this year awesome.  And in TMX, it has been a fine year for blogging.

   The biggest news for Marochaholics this year was the launch of Marocharim.com: after three years of blog-hosting services at BlogDrive, everything became brand-spanking new a few weeks ago.  TMX loaded a heck of a lot faster and to some, looked a hell of a lot better.  Another big news was the online launch of Deus Ex Cybernetica: The Best of The Marocharim Experiment, which is an online e-book of the best of the first 1,000 entries of TMX.  Previously, it was only available through e-mail distribution.  Now that I have a lot more space to fiddle with, I will be making it - along with all other Marocharim e-books - available for download right here.

   It was also this year that I won my first blog-related award in PinoyBlogosphere.com’s Wika2007 Blog Writing Contest, where my entry “Pista ng Wikang Filipino/The Spectacle of the Filipino Language” won the Participants’ Choice Award (arguably my most famous entry to date).  The award, to me, is more than just a ticket to a free domain: to be recognized by top bloggers in the Philippines to be more than worth this award is something I will try very hard to live up to in 2008 and beyond.

   This year was marked by three volumes of TMX: Vol. 5, Vol. 6, and Vol. 7, spanning 362 entries in Original TMX, and 48 entries here in Marocharim.com (not including this one).  Yup, this year, I wrote 410 articles: statistically, an average of 1.12 entries a day.  On par with a professional blogger or a journalist working for a local newspaper.  And I have no one else to thank but my readers, who continue to read my blog and have sort of made a nightly routine out of it.  Thank you very much, guys.

   It was also this year that I have come to the attention of many notable bloggers, particularly Mr. Manuel Quezon III, who has quoted and referred to my blog on more than a few ocassions.  Internationally, my entry on Joma Sison’s September arrest in the Netherlands drew the attention of global neoconservatives, in particular The Belmont Club, Karlo Mongaya, and not to mention a few Joma supporters and sympathizers.  A brief debate between me and Teo Marasigan of Kapirasong Kritika on the matter of blogging.

   Overall, TMX has done good: way good.  Here’s to 2008, and many more Experiments to come.