Misadventures in Cebu…. because of an Xbox 360

Me and some IT press members recently attended a press event, courtesy of Microsoft, in Cebu and Siargao. It's one of those annual press junkets. But this year was both fun and frustrating. There are a thousand reasons to feel great after the four-day trip to Cebu and Siargao. But I could also tell a hundred bad things that happened during the sojourn. For now, I'll relate our bad experience first before going for the better part of the experience.

First of all, my compatriots in the Blue Team didn't fare well in the Amazing Race that was one of the three games conducted by Microsoft. The laptop that we used couldn't connect to the WeRoam account that went with it. Apparently, there was some problems with our WeRoam account. Instead of giving ourselves a headache, my team mates decided to just ditch the game and enjoy roadtrip and the view of Cebu. Meanwhile the other three teams (Orange, Yellow and Green) had all their eyes on the prize. We all had a reason for wanting to win: members of the winning team would each get an Xbox 360.

Anyway, my team didn't win the Amazing Race, largely because we couldn't connect to the Internet to download the first clue (by the way, we went to a hole-in-a-wall cafe somewhere in Cebu just to do what was supposed to be done in the notebook that was assigned to us. That experience in the cafe was both funny and scary). By the time we finished our tasks, we were already the laughing stock of the other three teams. It was a bit frustrating at first, especially with some of our colleagues in the press boasting how they cut through the mild traffic in Cebu, but instead of sulking, we just enjoyed the food that was served to us. From there, the Blue Team just decided to stop drooling for the Xbox 360 and just continue on with the trip, which was the original plan in the first place.

Come friday morning, we flew to Siargao, Surigao del Norte. We went to Pansukian Resort, about 20 minutes away from the Sayak Airport. I still tried to connect to the Internet and already asked help from our resident Smart/PLDT representative, Grace Clavecilla and even Microsoft's tech guru Jojo Ayson. Both were stumped with my team's notebook problems.

We still needed to use the notebook to create a presentation of our team's photos. We had to use the Microsoft Photo Story 3 software (a surprisingly nifty little app) in the notebooks. This was the second part of the game while the third was to create a blog based on our teams' adventures. The scoring was based on a percentage system for all three games and, of course, the team with the highest score wins.

The other teams were already hard at work with doing their Photo Story presentations and blogs. Some of the other team's members didn't even join the surfing, island hopping, beach combing and cliff jumping activities just so they could finish their presentations and blogs. On the other hand, my team didn't have to worry about it. We surrendered to the fact that we were already beaten. My team was all for the trip and not for the Xbox anymore. Some of the teams said we were losers already, but we were the only team that was complete when we did all of the other fun activities during the entire stay in Siargao.

By the second night of our stay, the three "winning" teams were ready for their presentations. The funny part was, our team tied for second place with the Orange team in the Photo Story game. Me and my colleagues only did our presentation in 30 minutes and didn't even give so much effort as to beautifying the whole thing. We just presented our Photo Story as it was. A few of the other members in the other teams admitted that they were surprised by how well we did our presentation. "Guys, it only took us 30 effortless minutes to do our presentation," I said.

Given the fact that we placed second in the game, we found some hope that we may still get a chance to fight for the Xbox. Microsoft even gave us a little bit of leverage when they decided to include the blog content that I typed the previous night, which i planned to upload to our blogsite if we had the chance. Because the judges from Microsoft couldn't access the other three teams' blogsites because of the bad WeRoam connection, they decided to just collect all of the text-based blog content.

But that didn't sit well with the other team members. The other three teams already had their blog sites uploaded and they didn't save their content as text. If Microsoft pushed through with their new plan, only the Blue Team's content would be judged. It was at this point that emotions flared up a bit and complaints and counterarguments were flying back and forth. It was disappointing to see old friends arguing just for an Xbox.

Seeing and smelling trouble, I told Microsoft's Mae Moreno to just go on with their original plan and use the uploaded blogs for the contest. Since they couldn't see the blogs at that time, Mae said they would have to check on it on Monday. This would give my team time to upload our content. It was here again when some of the other teams' members complained that my team couldn't do that because, as they said, a blog was supposed to be typed in as it is and not prior to uploading. Our content wasn't part of the blog description, which the other teams' members said didn't constitute to an actual blog. Again, smelling trouble, my team discreetly walked away and told Microsoft to just decide on the three teams' blogs.

Anyway, Microsoft would be announcing the winners of the contest tonight in Gweilos Makati. Whatever it is, I'm hoping that it won't be that other team that's been so boastful that they haven't stopped taunting the other teams until today. Hay… all for an Xbox360. But whoever wins, congratulations and I hope they enjoy their Xbox 360s.

Kudos to Sean de Jesus and Jen Rubio of Media Gateway and Emmy Abadilla of Manila Bulletin. I liked what they said about us losing: "Ok lang matalo kami basta yung iba hindi manalo" and "Happy experiences are worth more than the Xboxes that they won."

At any rate, I'll next upload the fun stuff about our experiences in Siargao. By the way, belated happy mothers' day to all the hot mommas out there