2005 March — Noel <3 Via

Notary Public

On my way to work this morning I noticed something funny by the road I usually pass. There was this hand painted sign on a fence saying “notary public” and right below it was a woman dressed in office attire. In front of her was a small desk containing what was probably essentials for that profession. Below her desk was another “notary public” sign. This all seemed normal except that this woman was sitting at one of the bright pink MMDA waiting sheds and her legs hanging and swaying without her shoes on. She redefined the meaning of the word public.

This reminded me of that time when we were driving through one of the new “flyover” bridges in libis where the lanes were separated by a shoulder high wall. As we were speeding through this bridge, we saw two people with their arms over the wall talking to one another. It looked like a typical scene of backyard neighbors gossiping. These two didn’t seem to mind that there were cars passing them at 80kph.

Nail Spa Afternoon

HAPPY BIRTHDAY FRAN and CAMU!!! :)

Camu-and-Ma-resized.jpg my cousin Camille and my Mom lounging

Camu-resized.jpg Camu’s bubbles gone overboard!

FranVia-resized.jpg Sisters at the (Nail) Spa

FranVia-resized_nailpolish.jpg Nail Polish Hoarding

Ef and Fi

Noel and I treated ourselves to an overnight stay at one of the Makati hotels, Hotel Dusit, as they had an Easter promo that was pretty reasonable. We brought along our gear of Season4 episodes of 24 and some reading material. We had a heavenly dinner with Mommy Vicks (Noel’s Mom) at one of our all-time favorite Japanese restaurants, Benkay. Before that, Noel and I had a nice leisurely walk around the mall area of Glorietta. (Around since everything was closed for Holy Thursday)

On our way back up to our room in the elevator, we were with a more senior couple, a Filipina and an American. She very casually told him: “Then you can already start f**king.” I think Noel and I took sudden intakes of breath and willed ourselves not to look each other in the eye and avoid contact with the couple against all costs.

As soon as we left the elevator, Noel and I burst out laughing wondering how she could be so nonchalant while the man she was with seemed so embarrassed. (This according to Noel as I didn’t dare look in his direction) Then Noel realized, she probably meant “packing”. At that time, it really didn’t occur to us though- our brains were already down the toilet.

A Week to Get WiFi

A week after getting the broadband wireless router that was a present from Dud, it is finally working. Steps that took to make it work:
1) Spend an hour on the phone with the manufacturer’s only tech support, (office hours only!) and if it still isn’t working it’s probably a defective unit so you have to..

2) Call the place where you bought the damn thing and they will pass your call around until they decide that..

3) You have to call their other branch who has the tech person. The tech person won’t know what’s wrong with it and charges an outrageous amount to go to your place to see if he can possibly fix it. So the only thing left to do is..

4) Go to that OTHER branch and bring your router and laptops, then look for this tech guy and wait for him to do testing on ANOTHER router. Only to have him tell you that your router should be working.

5) You then tell them that they have to test YOUR router. They test it, and see that it isn’t working with the mac. They tell you that the product never really worked with the mac and that the OTHER store where you bought it didn’t know what they were saying when they told you that it would.

6) You wait there until another more knowledgable person recommends that you upgrade the firmware.

7) Wait for one more hour for the guy to download and upgrade the router.
8) Test. and Succeed. Listen to the tech guy tell you that it still might not work with your DSL modem because it might have a conflict.

9) Go home. Cross your fingers and hope that it works.

10) Thank God that it finally works and enjoy wireless broadband internet from your bedroom.

“You looked much younger last week”

I had my passport renewed last week, so I needed to take an ID photo. The process was painless and I got my passport in a week (yesterday). It was delivered to me in the office. The delivery boy asked me to check if everything was in order. Naturally I checked the new passport and if it had my photo and right information.

The delivery boy glanced at my photo and said, “Sir, ang bata niyo pa diyan” (you look so young there) “What?” I replied. “Eh last week lang yan eh!” (that was just a week ago)

“You looked much younger last week”

I had my passport renewed last week, so I needed to take an ID photo. The process was painless and I got my passport in a week (yesterday). It was delivered to me in the office. The delivery boy asked me to check if everything was in order. Naturally I checked the new passport and if it had my photo and right information.

The delivery boy glanced at my photo and said, “Sir, ang bata niyo pa diyan” (you look so young there) “What?” I replied. “Eh last week lang yan eh!” (that was just a week ago)

“You looked much younger last week”

I had my passport renewed last week, so I needed to take an ID photo. The process was painless and I got my passport in a week (yesterday). It was delivered to me in the office. The delivery boy asked me to check if everything was in order. Naturally I checked the new passport and if it had my photo and right information.

The delivery boy glanced at my photo and said, “Sir, ang bata niyo pa diyan” (you look so young there) “What?” I replied. “Eh last week lang yan eh!” (that was just a week ago)

Vino e Formaggio

Noel and I attended our first wine and cheese event courtesy of the Philippine-Italian Association last Friday. At first we were afraid it might turn out to be a dreadful bore. But upon arriving at the Italian Ambassador’s home in Dasmari

Pinoy TV = Italian TV

Just today I noticed how Philippine television programs are very similar to Italian ones. While in Ivrea, someone commented, “Isn’t there anything else on aside from game shows?”

Being in a media corporation (ABS-CBN), its no wonder that we have 10 or more TVs on simultaneously. And today I realized that half of my day at work is filled with listening to game shows and variety shows like “Game Ka Na Ba?” and “Wowowee.”

Sometimes it gets irritating, sometimes it just fades into the background. And for those unbearable times I always have iTunes to retreat to.

HelloMoto

hellomoto.jpg
Just got myself a new phone. I’ve been eyeing this one for sometime now, mostly for its price and bluetooth capability to work with my mac. Well what made me take that step is a promo that came out now. Buy a moto and go to the beach. Yep free trip to either Boracay, Puerto Princesa, or Bohol for one person for my phone class. If you think its a good deal, go out now since promo ends on March 13.

More about the phone: I am a nokia user so shifting to motorola required some unlearning of some SMS things I have gotten used to. One glaring difference was that the delete and send button are reversed. I also noticed that you can’t delete all names in one go, which might be a good thing since it comes with a software that allows you to do that. For bluetooth capabilities, it has lived up to my expectations, I use a mac application called BluePhoneElite which allows me to send SMS by using my mac. I also use iSync for my address book and calendar.. some bugs occur since it isn’t in the list of supported phones.