October 2014
THIS HAS BEEN a fix-up
day for me, a continuing saga with my LPG tank, remember my
"de-salpak" or "de-roscas" post months ago? Recently my
stove has been acting up, it would just ignite, blow LPG and the flame dies
out. For fear that it would explode, I had to rush and get a new one. After
speaking with a Standard (brand of my stove) repairman over the phone who
insisted that I bring the unit to their service center. WTF, to Pasay? Then to
fall in line for them to check and come back for it
a week after? Effing suggestion.
So I called my LPG supplier-- SPEEDY
LPG. You can look them up, they're quite good. Delivery is less than 30 minutes
from somewhere Rockwell to my place. And the 7-kilo LPG tank is only P510
compared to the other dealer who quoted me at P670. They sent their delivery
guy cum repair man to change my stove and hose to a thinner one. Now the hose can
get through the hole and tank goes inside the cabinet under the sink.
But the culprit REALLY is
the "de-salpak" regulator, not the stove. Good thing, Speedy
repairman brought a heavy duty, metal regulator which is "on loan" to
me and to be paid in X number of days.
CONSIDER THIS A BLESSING.
NOW I CAN COOK.... and not use my rice cooker as fallback.
Count two: my
printer/scanner's issues which were giving me a headache have been resolved. I
went straight to Canon's corporate communications manager. Luz de Leon, you've met her for the
OnStage magazine ad support. She sent a technician over and we determined that
the store where I bought my unit misinformed me. Instead of my money back, I
asked for a trade-in for the next higher model.
See what you get when you
complain nicely?
September
2014
IT'S BEEN EIGHT MONTHS since I moved to
another unit where I live. It took quite a while with some pretty high level of
stress to have my PLDT DSL service transferred here. Once up and running, I
started to receive stray and spurious calls looking for a party clown group
that's for hire.
I can count with my fingers the calls that were meant for me as rare as
when a meteor falls to the Earth.
Sometimes when I'm asleep
(you know what weird hours I keep), my phone rings and the caller is asking for
the Buyoyong clowns. No longer funny.
Yesterday
evening was different and I heaved a sigh of relief that I didn't answer the
phone. My kiddo diddo did. This time, the caller was inquiring about coffins.
Better clowns than coffins.
"*&&^%^$%$%$&**, grrrr" expletives
August 2014
NEVER THOUGHT I'd be an addict to
anything. I'm out of coffee, and now am climbing walls. Instead, I find in the
fridge, GOYA Dark Raisins (dark chocolate coated raisins) a worthy replacement.
It's manufactured under license by Delfi
Foods, Inc. (of Switzerland) to Delfi
Foods Inc. (in Parang, Marikina). If I remember right, the GOYA brand under
Philippine Cocoa Corp. was one of the product lines we handled when I was in
A&A.
It's such a joy to eat it this early morning, that you wanna answer to the call of nature. I'm reading "A Separate Peace" by the late John Knowles. It's a story on suicide by an introverted adolescent intellectual. While I have a long way to go, I can only read when I'm in bed and not engaged in catching up on conversations with the kiddo, my ward. He has stories to tell, over the years.
I'd crawl for a cup of coffee.... walk
a mile, and that's just for starters for today, Wednesday.
July 2014
Another for the
books... lately I am pissed by some text scammers who scheme to steal load from
people in the guise of a promotional campaign. I have been a GLOBE Handyphone
postpaid subscriber for many years now. In the past, I was given a free phone
every other year for being a loyal customer.
Around 3 weeks ago, I
received an SMS from a unknown texter, title in all caps GLOBE ADVISORY....
something to the effect in really bad English-- You have been chosen as the winner of 35% discount on your monthly bill. ("the
winner" --- is it me only?). To claim, text 500 to number 2XXXXXXXXXX.
After I reported to Globe's hotline, I
deleted the SMS with some sort of an assurance from the CSR that he will do
something about it. After a few days, indeed, I got an SMS from Globe coming
from a 4-digit number, saying "DON'T BE A VICTIM OF TEXT SCAMS.... "
Fine, thank you.
This
morning was different and what a way to start the day -- to report again to
Globe, I spoke with a certain Gena Fontanosa (I have her employee number), a
CSR at Globe's hotline who can't do anything to bar the text messages. She said
I had to call TOUCH MOBILE myself and report it. UNBELIEVABLE and she refused
to get me her supervisor.
.
Be wary of these numbers:
639222398973 (not sure what network) and 29368986578 of TOUCH MOBILE, a sister
company of Globe.
I am frothing in the mouth
for lack of words.
July 2014
HAD A DELIGHTFUL lunch with family: my son Nicolo, his wife and our kiddo Marcus at BAWAIS VIETNAMESE KITCHEN.
It's right along Katipunan Road, in White Plains QC. I think that whatever food
we ordered, it would have been all the same delightful. My choice was the pan
fried fillet of sole with lots of veggies on the side. The rest of the orders
were my daughter-in-law's choices who has mastered the likes and dislikes of
the family. She strongly recommended the tamarind iced tea which I savored down
to the the last drop and seeds (yes, you can eat the tamarind seeds). We drove
to a dessert place nearby for cakes and bubble teas where I, the coffee addict was
happily content with brewed coffee.
June 2014
KRAFT
DOESN’T MAKE cheddar as sharp and tasty anymore. Bought a small size CHEDDAR
cheese, hoping it's sharp and can be easily grated. I had to put it in the
freezer so I could get to grate but still only with some difficulty. I usually
prepare cheese pimiento spread myself
with butter and good sharp cheese, and
stewed red bell pepper. This one is such a low down deception of KRAFT CHEDDAR.
When you read the label on the box, it says "processed cheese spread.”
June 2014
TODAY I FEEL PROUD of myself. I forgave a merchandiser at my not
so favorite nearby supermarket. Here's what happened: I bought half a kilo of
hamonado longgonisa, ground beef and other small items a couple of days ago. This
was a stop gap solution till I am able to do my full list of groceries this
weekend. The longgonisa tasted weird, and my kiddo validated it when he got
home from school. He didn't finish his packed lunch plain and simple. Since I
couldn't find the receipt, I brought with me the ATM receipt instead. The customer
service supervisor was able to trace
which concessionaire to call for reprimand. It was STRANGE that the receipt printed out by
customer service personnel didn't show any longgonisa. It showed "sawdust," .401 kg. at 30
pesos a kilo. Sawdust is a product description for scrap meat used to feed
animals, like pets. Dear Lord, why would I feed ourselves with scrap meat?
But wait, there's more.... we went to the concessionaires row, I pointed out
which of them sold me the longgonisa. Clearly it was the male merchandiser I
recognized from two days ago who gave me the longgonisa. He didn’t properly tag the item, thus the
mistake was carried out through the cashier. The supervisor insisted on a reprimand
however, my soul melted, and told the
customer service supervisor that I will settle for replacement of the
longganisa. Got tinapa instead.
That’s
how the aversion to longgonisa started, never again to buy it at this supermarket.
