I always bump around Tiara, the editor-in-chief of University of the Philippines-Mindanao's Himati, everytime I visit Coffee Spot, the sanest place along the constantly-frenzied-mode Claveria St. of Davao.

The frequent encounter with her at Coffee Spot makes me think--ok, the girl is part of the whole package. Like, she's no different from the cakes and the pastries inside the brightly-lit showcase. It's like she's owned the place and it owned her already. One day, I was tempted to ask her--"are you a stockholder?"

But like me, the girl only wants to enjoy the offerings of Coffee Spot: free, as in generously overflowing, internet connection that hits the very-good-to-excellent mark, a smokers' den that is still reached by the piped-in music, and the, err....ok coffee.

It's always writing and journalism that unites the two of us. As a mainstream practicing journalist, I have had the chance to share with her and her group some inputs about, err...journalism (what else?). I usually do the talking during these sessions, no matter how I encourage a very animated exchanges.

Recently, though, things took another shape between us as I found her lecturing on me a matter that sounded sooooo mathematics to me--blogvertise.

Listening to talk about figures gave me the chill. I felt like I'm once again standing small, face to face, with my highschool algebra teacher. She's the charming the version, though.

"It's easy."

"Yeah, right."

"Really. Believe me...imagine me and my brother are into it."

"Uhhha?"

"I'm earning at least 300 dollars a month...Pearl is earning more that than. And my brother is earning as much as I earn too. And Pearl's sister earns this much, too...and Pearl is planning to quitting this job to concentrate on this..."

"Really?"

"Look, one day I went to the mall with my brother and we splurged. You know, we can now afford to splurge---together!"

"What's it called again?"

"Blogvertise."

So I found myself turning on my lappy, wrote blogvertise and punched the enter key.