Just over a year ago, I was this speck-of-a-newbie to the blogosphere. I still am. But seeing the referred links from Google on a daily basis means I must have been writing the right stuff to generate a helping of hits which I hope had been at least relevant to the clicker/surfer/researcher/porn-whore visitor.

I have first read of blogging from Jeremy Wagstaff's "Loose Wire" column in the Far Eastern Economic Review magazine I was subscribed to. Having no patience to seek out a decent webhost then, and not knowing even the basics of html scripts and java and other publishing-related stuff, I'd forgotten on purpose that an eagerness spark once gleamed from my eyes for the want to try and make writing-on-the-side work for me as my non-day job. Not that writing and blogging has been putting food on my plate at the moment as I had never gotten a cent from this endeavor, but it certainly puts things on perspective. At least, personally.

I could still remember visiting high-traffic blogsites and commenting and signing off with a link to this site with a premise of getting hitbacks. In time, I had put an end to my blog-whoring act. Maybe, let's just say I had gotten tired and realized the cheapness magnitude of the act. I now bloghop with a scan-here-skim-there naive air about me, momentarily stopping when something catches my attention.

Point of this whole intro bit is, it feels great to be acknowledged. Personally, it is inspiring to see yourself grow, and change, and get better in time. Moreso, it is rewarding to be classified as one of the coolest blogs there is locally, content-wise. Affirmation courtesy of Dashmedia, a new blog network dedicated on, and I quote: "... lead[ing] the way to slightly more intelligent blogging. We are currently sifting through this shitpool called the blogosphere hoping to find a few well written blogs."

There are 23 sites who were painstakingly chosen and inducted as the first members of the Dashmedia Network. They, or shall I say we, are (cue drum roll and fanfare here please!):

The Noisy Noisy Man
Faded Boxers
Just Wandering
Complex Vertigo
Time and Tide
Writings on the wall
As above me, so below me
Talkin' Tech
Tech Stop, Tech stuff
Guttervomit
Poldo's procrastination
Project Manila
Nonstandardized
More, More, I want more!
Renaissance girl
Lamentations beta
Xenia Maria
Qwerky
Girl from the gutter
Hail to the queen
Nitpicky.org
Songs of the salamander
The Man Blog

Click on the links and check out what set these guys apart from the more-than-a-hundred submissions to the network.