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Thursday, April 29, 2010
sleepless nights
i haven't been sleeping well the past two nights, probably around two to three hours max. I dont' exactly know what the reason behind this is but I know i don't really suffer from insomia. I'm not excited about anything nor am i not tired, nor am I loaded with problems so this is quite a surprise coz I usually have a good sleep every night. So what to do instead of just tossing and turning. I turn to my best friend....my laptop. I play games (sims3), i surf, i look at porn sites even (gasp!) just to get me through the night. Now the problem is I have a headache. and this comes not on a good time as I'm scheduled to travel to Baguio City tonight with my two nieces and my nephew. Im hoping the ride is smooth and I'll be able to sleep non-stop during the whole trip. Wish me luck!
Saturday, April 24, 2010
Hot! Hot! Hot!
It's so HOT! and i'm not referring to myself (hehe) but the weather. Currently, i have no choice but to turn on the aircon (its like 1700H, Manila time) since I just took a shower earlier and immediately after getting out of the bathroom, sweat is already forming on my back. I hate sweating,( except when I'm running or at the gym) since I feel everytime I sweat, my energy level is zapped to a lower level, hence making me tired. I'd rather have winter rash than summer rash. If there's one secret wish since I had as a child is that we would experience winter in our country.
Even a hint of snow would make me extremely happy. Or at least temperatures would drop to zero degrees so we could all wear our winter gear. But, alas, I live in a tropical country so 80% of the time, its warm and humid. So do you think people who live in countries where it is constantly wet and cold have a secret wish of living in a warm tropical country? Maybe the heavens could just play a joke one day and play around with the weather (slowly this is happening due to global warming, i think)...I am so looking forward to our trip to Baguio next week, I pray its extremely cold by the time we visit...pleaseeeeee
Even a hint of snow would make me extremely happy. Or at least temperatures would drop to zero degrees so we could all wear our winter gear. But, alas, I live in a tropical country so 80% of the time, its warm and humid. So do you think people who live in countries where it is constantly wet and cold have a secret wish of living in a warm tropical country? Maybe the heavens could just play a joke one day and play around with the weather (slowly this is happening due to global warming, i think)...I am so looking forward to our trip to Baguio next week, I pray its extremely cold by the time we visit...pleaseeeeee
Thursday, April 22, 2010
Meralco
Nowadays, one can read on the newspapers, blogs, twitters, websites, etc about people complaining about the sudden ballooning of their electric bills. In my case, my electric bill used to be around p2,700 per month but last month's bill became P4,200. I guess I really cannot complain that much since I noticed I've been using the airconditioning unit for a longer time due to the sweltering heat in our country even at night time. I can, however, emphatize with people whose electric bill jacked up to like 80% from their original bill. Money definitely does not grow out of trees...unless your boyfriend is as rich as Henry Sy. So what can we do about it? for now, all we can do is to complain. Complain until it hurts and Meralco decides to bring down the charges. (or as some of my friends opted to do...no turning on of the airconditioning unit which to me, is like putting a bullet through your head!)
Monday, April 19, 2010
Wham Burgers
We all crave for a burger from time to time and yesterday was the day for my craving. So i brought my nephew and two niece to the mall to eat at one of the best burger places (for me, that is) in the metro....Wham Burgers. You definitely have to try the Wham Burger without the cheese to really appreciate how juicy and tasty the burger is. According to Wham Burgers, they only serve the freshest 1/3 pure beef in every burger and its never frozen but freshly cooked. For a bigger appetite, i recommend the Double Whammy but be warned, this is really huge. I tried to munch on one one time and believe me, i felt soooo full i literally just wanted to lie down on the floor right there and then and sleep!
Wham Burger in its packaging
makes you wanna have a burger right now, doesn't it?
Cookbook pulped over 'ground black people' typo
SYDNEY – An Australian publisher is reprinting 7,000 cookbooks over a recipe for pasta with "salt and freshly ground black people."
Penguin Group Australia's head of publishing, Bob Sessions, acknowledged the proofreader for the Pasta Bible should have picked up the error, but called it nothing more than a "silly mistake."
The "Pasta Bible" recipe for spelt tagliatelle with sardines and prosciutto was supposed to call for black pepper.
"We're mortified that this has become an issue of any kind and why anyone would be offended, we don't know," he told The Sydney Morning Herald for a story printed Saturday.
"We've said to bookstores that if anyone is small-minded enough to complain about this ... silly mistake, we will happily replace (the book) for them."
The reprint will cost Penguin 20,000 Australian dollars ($18,500), but books already in stores will not be recalled because doing so would be "extremely hard," Sessions said.
There was no answer at Penguin's offices Sunday.
Read this article this morning over Yahoo news and some heads must be rolling by now over this typo error. Thankfully nobody was making a big fuss about it. The person who made the mistake must have been thinking hard of a black person while typing that. It happens to us, doesn't it? Or at least to me it does. Sometimes when i think of something trivial in my head, i end up typing or texting it out of the blue. The opposite could also happen, we think of something so hard that we need to remember to do and eventually we do forget to do what we're supposed to do. weird ha.
Penguin Group Australia's head of publishing, Bob Sessions, acknowledged the proofreader for the Pasta Bible should have picked up the error, but called it nothing more than a "silly mistake."
The "Pasta Bible" recipe for spelt tagliatelle with sardines and prosciutto was supposed to call for black pepper.
"We're mortified that this has become an issue of any kind and why anyone would be offended, we don't know," he told The Sydney Morning Herald for a story printed Saturday.
"We've said to bookstores that if anyone is small-minded enough to complain about this ... silly mistake, we will happily replace (the book) for them."
The reprint will cost Penguin 20,000 Australian dollars ($18,500), but books already in stores will not be recalled because doing so would be "extremely hard," Sessions said.
There was no answer at Penguin's offices Sunday.
Read this article this morning over Yahoo news and some heads must be rolling by now over this typo error. Thankfully nobody was making a big fuss about it. The person who made the mistake must have been thinking hard of a black person while typing that. It happens to us, doesn't it? Or at least to me it does. Sometimes when i think of something trivial in my head, i end up typing or texting it out of the blue. The opposite could also happen, we think of something so hard that we need to remember to do and eventually we do forget to do what we're supposed to do. weird ha.
Saturday, April 17, 2010
Happy birthday
happy birthday to my Mom! she would have been 62 years old today. hope you're having fun wherever you are.
Friday, April 16, 2010
L.R.T.
I love taking the train to travel around the city. I really do. We call it the LRT or short for Light Rail Transit which traverses between Baclaran and Monumento. So why do i enjoy taking the LRT? let me coung the ways:
1. its fast. normally it would take me at least 20 minutes to drive from my house to my work and more when its time for me to go home (could go up to at most 45 minutes). With the train, it usually just takes me 15 minutes to travel per way. so that kinda lessens the daily stress factor for me.
2. i save on gas. for obvious reasons. plus i kinda like the idea of helping our environment by not making the hole up there bigger. (plastic!)
3. i like observing people. from the obviously fake bags that women insist on carrying. individual fashion styles that go in and out of the doors. to humongous i-wonder-how-they-passed-through-security boxes that people lug around, nuances and all the other stuff associated with each and every person.
4. i can daydream while in transit which i cannot do while driving (my brain is not that good in multitasking). although when i daydream, i just have to make sure my phones, wallet and all valuables are not swiped away by mr fast hands.
5. its generally safe. i've never heard of any accidents on the track except for that one time when explosives went off but that was like way back when security was still lax.
On the negative side though, there are some things i don't like about the LRT:
1. delays (which are rare) but when it happens, its a bummer
2. overcrowding. you wouldn't want to be sniffing somebody's B.O. like, at the end of the day right? and believe me, at around 6p.m., riding an overcrowded train is comparable to having a thousand pits being stuffed into your nose. to avoid this, i avoid taking a crowded train and i specifically wait for a nearly empty one. I can afford to wait since i only have 3 stops between my house and the office.
3. snooty passengers like women or men who give you the dirty look if you accidentally touch them. its either they think you're a maniac or you're after their purse/wallet. to begin with sister, i have a better (original) bag, more money in my wallet and better legs (ha! take that! hehehehehe)
p.s.
4. people who refuse to buy earphones or headphones when listening to music coming from their mp3/handphone units. Its probably they cannot afford to buy a decent pair or they'd like to share to the world the crappy music they are listening to. i often hear the announcement from the p.a. advising people about common courtesy in talking in moderate tones and listening to music using a headphone or earphone but i guess they are just stubborn
5. people who carelessly carry backpacks or bags that they often hit people beside them with it. or to make matters worse, the cheap material is so rough that is often rubs roughly against my skin. i'd just like to take a blade and slice through their cheap excuse for a backpack/bag hehehe that's why i admire people who have the common sense to place their backpacks on their chest or to hug their bags to their body as to not inconvenience the other passengers.
1. its fast. normally it would take me at least 20 minutes to drive from my house to my work and more when its time for me to go home (could go up to at most 45 minutes). With the train, it usually just takes me 15 minutes to travel per way. so that kinda lessens the daily stress factor for me.
2. i save on gas. for obvious reasons. plus i kinda like the idea of helping our environment by not making the hole up there bigger. (plastic!)
3. i like observing people. from the obviously fake bags that women insist on carrying. individual fashion styles that go in and out of the doors. to humongous i-wonder-how-they-passed-through-security boxes that people lug around, nuances and all the other stuff associated with each and every person.
4. i can daydream while in transit which i cannot do while driving (my brain is not that good in multitasking). although when i daydream, i just have to make sure my phones, wallet and all valuables are not swiped away by mr fast hands.
5. its generally safe. i've never heard of any accidents on the track except for that one time when explosives went off but that was like way back when security was still lax.
On the negative side though, there are some things i don't like about the LRT:
1. delays (which are rare) but when it happens, its a bummer
2. overcrowding. you wouldn't want to be sniffing somebody's B.O. like, at the end of the day right? and believe me, at around 6p.m., riding an overcrowded train is comparable to having a thousand pits being stuffed into your nose. to avoid this, i avoid taking a crowded train and i specifically wait for a nearly empty one. I can afford to wait since i only have 3 stops between my house and the office.
3. snooty passengers like women or men who give you the dirty look if you accidentally touch them. its either they think you're a maniac or you're after their purse/wallet. to begin with sister, i have a better (original) bag, more money in my wallet and better legs (ha! take that! hehehehehe)
p.s.
4. people who refuse to buy earphones or headphones when listening to music coming from their mp3/handphone units. Its probably they cannot afford to buy a decent pair or they'd like to share to the world the crappy music they are listening to. i often hear the announcement from the p.a. advising people about common courtesy in talking in moderate tones and listening to music using a headphone or earphone but i guess they are just stubborn
5. people who carelessly carry backpacks or bags that they often hit people beside them with it. or to make matters worse, the cheap material is so rough that is often rubs roughly against my skin. i'd just like to take a blade and slice through their cheap excuse for a backpack/bag hehehe that's why i admire people who have the common sense to place their backpacks on their chest or to hug their bags to their body as to not inconvenience the other passengers.
Hotel H2O...part 3
to continue with my story....so after requesting with the front desk for a change of room, they eventually decided to transfer me (and upgrade me) to an Aqua Room Supreme. The room is a lot bigger and comes with a bath tub (which is totally exposed and can be seen across one's bed. There are also two huge wall aquarium that adorn the room.
Breakfast this morning at Makansutra was a simple affair with a buffet spread....they need to improve on the presentation though as I didn't feel like i was in a deluxe hotel (Mr Legaspi tells me they will eventually change this once the hotel is in full operation).
Breakfast this morning at Makansutra was a simple affair with a buffet spread....they need to improve on the presentation though as I didn't feel like i was in a deluxe hotel (Mr Legaspi tells me they will eventually change this once the hotel is in full operation).Below are the details of the hotel if you'd like to experience staying at Hotel H2O:
Address: Luneta, Manila 1000
Tel: (63 2) 2386100
Fax: (63 2) 2386188
Email: reservation@hotelh2o.com
website: hotelh2o.com
Thursday, April 15, 2010
Hotel H2O...part 2
so after a hearty dinner at Makansutra with Mr. Christopher Legaspi, General Manager of H2O and my cousin Karen, here's a little info about Hotel H2O based on their press kit...
simple lines of the Front Desk
so the next step, ask for a room with a more 'private' toilet. so was the hotel able to give in to my request?...i'll let you know tomorrow, am sleepy na...later!
Hotel H2O just had its soft launch last Saturday, 10th April 2010. We are the newest, hip and dynamic hotel in town with the statement "fabulous, fluid and forward-looking"
simple lines of the Front Desk
Check in was a breeze...it only took like a minute for the front desk staff to give me my key and i was off to my Bay View Room. The view was spectacular, with an unobstructed view of Manila Bay.
view taken from my Bay View Room
So the room is all shiny and new as expected from a brand new deluxe hotel with all rooms furnished with at least a 40 inch samsung lcd tv and complimentary in-room LAN internet for all in house guests
My only gripe was the bath room (there was no main door to separate the bed from the bathroom) which i felt was so 'exposed'
so the next step, ask for a room with a more 'private' toilet. so was the hotel able to give in to my request?...i'll let you know tomorrow, am sleepy na...later!
Hotel H2O
Just checked into this lovely new hotel call Hotel H2O located at the back of Quirino Grandstand....will post the pictures in a while as i'm heading off to dinner!....later...
Wednesday, April 14, 2010
B.I.R. + Manila City Hall = Corruption
I was having a late Chinese dinner last week with some of my friends who happen to own restaurants in the Binondo, Chinatown area. They were lamenting about the fact that they are being harrassed by B.I.R. (Bureau of Internal Revenue) staff to pay their annual 'grease' money. And its no small amount, I'm telling you. Grease money could start from Php150,000 to Php500,000 depending on the size of your business and it doesn't matter whether you are earning or not! What do you get out of paying this grease money? Businesses won't be harrassed further and they will cleared in supposedly paying the right taxes to the government. Out of the Php150,000-Php500,000, Php 20,000 is reportedly submitted to the local government coffers and the rest is pocketed by the B.I.R. staff to enrich themselves. Even people who want to start a business in Manila are discouraged by the fact that they have to give grease money to practically everyone (the guy who signs the fire permit (on top of the grease money, you have to buy his overpriced fire extinguisher), the guy who signs the building permit, etc...its a long list, I'm telling you.) What I'm saying is, isn't the Manila mayor, Alfredo Lim supposed to be the Dirty Harry of the Philippines since he supposedly doesn't allow corruption and is as straight as an arrow. I used to admire this guy since he had the gung-ho attitude that the city needed but apparently, he is one 'dirty' guy that needs to be cleaned up as well. Mind you, I checked with my friends who wanted to start businesses in other cities and they told me this was not the case in their city. Clean it up, Mr. Dirty Harry!
Tuesday, April 13, 2010
Gone too soon....Elizabeth Lee
Last week, Elizabeth Lee passed away in her sleep and doctors attributed this to aneurysm (rupturing of the blood vessel). I knew her through my cousin who happens to her best friend. I was never really close to her but I consider her part of my childhood. She was only 37. RIP Elizabeth
Sims3
Whoever invented the game SIMS3 should either be worshipped like a god or burned at the stake like the town witch (yes, you know im talking about you being the witch that you are!). Ever since my best friend gifted me with the Limited Edition Sims3 Christmas 2008, I have been playing non-stop. I gotta get over this addiction....
What the heck!?!?!
I can't believe it! I wake up one morning and realize I'm happy!
According to Wikipedia, happiness is the state of mind or feeling characterized by contentment, love, satisfaction, pleasure or joy.
I used to be a materialistic bastard (c'mon be honest... i still am) who isn't happy until I have a new pair of shoes, a new bag or a new gadget. I don't go for Prada, Loewe, or even LV as i simply cannot afford them. I am what you would call a middle class shopper with a penchant for Bossini, Puma, New Balance, Levi's (only if they're on sale!) and the rest of the stuff regular people buy. (my mom always said i should patronize local stuff but, God rest her soul, that's one thing I still haven't gotten to!). I also am, a dreaded word by some.....SINGLE....fast approaching the big 4-0 but this doesn't worry me as much as when I as younger when a one-night stand was something to brag about to your friends. I drive a beat-down, sickly 1997 mazda which is a regular at the car shop for repairs due to one reason or the other (I'm practically considered a best friend now of the car shop owner being a regular client...hmmm, now that i think of it, i could already be a partner with all the money i spend on that car shop!) but a car is just a car, if its broken, there are cabs or the mass transit trains available.
So why am I happy now? I guess I've learned to accept things as they are and not try to force them to what I would want to be....I've learned to appreciate simple joys in life, like being awakened by my dog(s) licking my face. I've also learned that if I can't afford to buy it, then just let it be. (gosh, i sound like an O-L-D person!!!)
According to Wikipedia, happiness is the state of mind or feeling characterized by contentment, love, satisfaction, pleasure or joy.
I used to be a materialistic bastard (c'mon be honest... i still am) who isn't happy until I have a new pair of shoes, a new bag or a new gadget. I don't go for Prada, Loewe, or even LV as i simply cannot afford them. I am what you would call a middle class shopper with a penchant for Bossini, Puma, New Balance, Levi's (only if they're on sale!) and the rest of the stuff regular people buy. (my mom always said i should patronize local stuff but, God rest her soul, that's one thing I still haven't gotten to!). I also am, a dreaded word by some.....SINGLE....fast approaching the big 4-0 but this doesn't worry me as much as when I as younger when a one-night stand was something to brag about to your friends. I drive a beat-down, sickly 1997 mazda which is a regular at the car shop for repairs due to one reason or the other (I'm practically considered a best friend now of the car shop owner being a regular client...hmmm, now that i think of it, i could already be a partner with all the money i spend on that car shop!) but a car is just a car, if its broken, there are cabs or the mass transit trains available.
So why am I happy now? I guess I've learned to accept things as they are and not try to force them to what I would want to be....I've learned to appreciate simple joys in life, like being awakened by my dog(s) licking my face. I've also learned that if I can't afford to buy it, then just let it be. (gosh, i sound like an O-L-D person!!!)
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