my new toy

at P2,100 or about US $45, i got a compact 302 rollei. i'm amazed at the graphics it has and realized that a simple thing such as taking photos is now turning to be complicated because of all the options available. i haven't seriously gone out yet to take photos as the rains are horrible and i'm swamped with work.

i'm happy with the camera and will post photos soon. this is also my first purchase of an unused digital camera in my life so i am a bit excited to use something that's smaller than my small palm.

back to work now.

look before you eat that salad - a blog written about an incident last year

(had to cover the logo but i have the raw file)


while editing an article about local cuisine, i got reminded of this entry i wrote in my FB notes more than a year ago. the postscript to this is that a friend of a friend is the lawyer of this chain so my email got to the proper people.




please help me identify this spider


as i took my share of the waldorf-chicken salad of a famous restaurant at glorietta, my friends noticed something odd -- there was a spider. it wasn't like any spider we had ever seen. it was black and quadruple that the size of the common house spider.

since they had eaten part of their salad and i didn't bother to eat mine, i will regret it if they have spidey powers after tonight's dinner. hahaha.

so, we told the waiters and the manager came forward. she insisted it might have come from the plants or dropped from the lamp above our table. ahm, nothing escapes my eyes that lands on my food. so we recounted the story.

to cut it short, she and the rest of the staff were cordial and did what's best. i was with a pretty calm set of friends so we just sat there, stared at spidey, and cracked jokes about it after the plate was removed. then, we all seemed to lose appetite and the ravioli went cold.

so, rather than create hysteria, discourage people from eating there, or sue the resto (unless my friends get super spidey powers and i don't), let me end by saying, make sure you squash everything before eating. err, i mean, look and look at what you're eating, don't just shovel it in.

beautiful pattern on this fish

i noticed that this fish had an unusual pattern.





next time i buy fish, i'll look at the patterns again but i'll still cook and eat them.



i love mackerel. i bought three at the frozen section of the supermarket. they were cheap as each was around P20. i cooked them in vinegar and ginger. i haven't eaten them all as i want each one to be soaked in vinegar. so, tomorrow, that's breakfast along with tomatoes, rice, and boiled eggs cooked with caramelized onions.

comfort food - masuki original bowl

it's that time of the year again when i go to binondo and help out in the contest. i've made it my rite to drop by masuki, the original ma mon luk. somehow i already know that place years ago but only stumbled upon its location when i started to explore the area. i didn't care that i already that yummy special ube siopao while waiting for the contest to be done. in my stomach, i had to get a bowl of this. then, i felt like it was the world's end, i had to eat two golf-ball size of compact and pure pork siomai.

what then is the rite in eating this bowl of noodles? i always order the original. the beef is too tasty if it's just all beef. the asado is too fatty. the plain chicken is pretty good but still, i'd stick it out with the original. the price depends on the condiments.

the bowl of noodles come in two sizes. this one is regular (P100). the bigger one (P120) with more soup and more noodles, i overheard, can be split and served in two. sometime ago, i tried that size and admitted i can never finish it.

what comes with the noodles are a cup of sweet sauce and chopped green onions. do not ask for calamansi or lemon to press into the soup. neither should one put soy sauce into it. put the chopped onions in to the soup. mix it. upon lifting the noodles, pour some sweet sauce over it before biting.

as for the siomai, it's pretty pricey at P30 each. since i had two, that was already P60. i only asked for one but the waiter gave me one order. what the heck, i'm not going to eat that much everyday.

the day at prc

i made sure i finished all assignments due today so i can file my papers for the LET. the LET is a professional exam for teachers wanting to teach in either elementary or secondary schools. though i've already ended my teaching career and for now, have no intention to return, i still went through the motions of getting qualified for that exam.

if there's anything the horrible typhoon ondoy brought, is that it allowed me to enrol in teaching certificate units and got me this laptop. the school advanced a month's salary and the 13th month so i was able to have some financial breather then.

anyway, people have been egging me to take the LET and so after i finished my 18 units in the school literally behind my bedroom window, i had to fix my papers.

that did not went smoothly. first, the school wanted me to get transfer credentials from my alma mater. horrors! my records will say i graduated from that school. argh. i can't downgrade but i had to do that. i was made to shuttle from here to there just to get those credentials. i can't forget the registrar in the tcp school making me wait for half an hour while she talked on the phone. all she needed to do was sign a clearance that i still had to pass to my alma mater. there was nothing to read, btw. it was just a standard request that came from the tcp school.

then i had to wait for two weeks for my alma mater to release the transfer credentials. then i had to wait for a month so that my papers from the tcp school will be fixed. that freaked me out! but what was worse was the amount i had to pay for it! it was thrice the cost of documents at my alma mater.

time and money were short but i managed.

finally, this day came and i trooped to prc following all instructions from its website.

the lines weren't that long except for the screening of documents. since it's a day before the deadline for filing, there should've been at least four persons doing that task. anyway, the boys who were doing the screening were talkative and i commented that that was their way of amusing themselves amidst the flurry of people.

the one who evaluated my documents remarked that i spent four years at my alma mater and only a year at the tcp school yet, the tcp school wants to make sure that it gets credit for my passing in b/w. hahaha.

then there are other charges like P21 for a documentary stamp and P50 for notary, which are mandatory. then i had to shell out another P21 for the metered window envelope which was not yet needed as of filing time.

i brought with me glue, stapler, a nice pen, clipboard, passport photos, residence certificate, and the original and photocopies of my documents. photos and the res certf are all available there, so is photocopying which is at P2/ page.

all in all, it took me three hours to finish the process.

while lining up, i was asked by quite a handful if that were the line for re-takers. i must have looked like one. so, i had to tell them, it was not. hmmm...

so, i'll slowly prepare for the test on sept 25 and go through the motions. sadly, i will not join the ranks of teachers even if i pass the LET. i've let go.


the prc only took the photocopies of my transcripts and birth certificate. all the originals are with me. so, what will i do now with all these copies?

my theory on the ending of 100 days to heaven

i've only followed a handful of telenovelas in my couch potato life. i grew up watching analiza over flor de luna simply because the latter had mean characters and janice was a batchmate, both i couldn't stand then. oh, i also got hooked on oishin, one of the first japanese telenovelas aired here. then, there was marimar that totally changed the evening habit of every tv fanatic. i missed the ending as those were my buffet binging days then. then, there came the korean series and i followed endless love, autumn in my heart. i skipped F4 as they were too cute.

then, i got hooked on pangako sa 'yo but when i saw the ending (instead of a well-thought out executed narrative, the series had each major character narrate her ending - the lamest and the most disappointing so far), that made me lose faith.

anyway, now, i got hooked on 100 days to heaven.first, i grew up watching the drama series of coney reyes and her real life drama - how she couldn't act yet, then she improved, got married, separated, hooked with vic, had a son, moved from 9 to 7 to 2, and i even got to learn her generous ways. second, the premise was interesting. it's not original but the twist is. third, that kid. she's incredible but since i saw her act in the last tanging ina movie, i knew her limitations. she's good. fourth, the snappy delivery of "you're fired!"

anyhow, i was disappointed last week when the drama started to reveal the sophia might be the daughter of anna. argh. i thought there'd be something more creative in the unraveling of the truth. but since, the network lives and brags on "alam namin ang gusto ng manunuod at nakikinig," i am not surprised.

where did i get the quote? all that one has to do is to suspend all biases and spend an hour or so listening to dzmm's mismo and the radio announcer whose movement in that radio show i followed not by choice, forever would repeat and brag that his network knows and gives what the viewers and listeners want.

so, i guess 100 days to heaven just went that way. at least, this teleserye had good subplots (or else i wouldn't have missed only around three episodes) and deviated from the stereotype screaming characters. it helps that B actors are mixed with great actors. just juxtapose jodi with jewel and valerie!

okay, here's my theory - i'm putting it up early so in case, it does get picked up, you know who suggested it.

eto ang theory ko sa ending ng 100 days. sophia will eventually find out that madame is her mother but then she (sophia) has to make a choice between kevin to live free from sickness or for her and madame to have a second chance at being mother and daughter.


(o, pag naging ganyan ang ending, ehem, i should have pursued my writing)

review review review

my latest stash of books. despite the fact that i haven't read much these past weeks and have had a conscious control of book purchases, i couldn't resist these when i saw them. i only wanted to buy the millennium series of steig larsson so i went to the booksale. tought luck, it was the day their new arrivals were being stacked! thanks to this noisy bookbuyer who seemed to know what he wanted, i immediately grabbed the following books in case he also might be interested. i had to leave a sedaris and an adams behind.

i'm pretty excited to read the historian. a new author for me is italo calvino. i got his book because noisy guy said he had a market for this author. hmmmm... he got all titles except this one which was a second copy. then, i decided to purchase first french kiss for P20 as i found the author's note funny.

i still haven't forgotten that i still have to get a copy of karin slaughter's latest books (which have yet to be here) and come next cut-price sale, i will procure the three books of lisbeth salander.

a rollei is a rollei is a rollei

i thought i'd be a bit financially safe until payday until i saw this was available for only half its original price. so, i got my membership and went through the process to avail of this camera. as i sat pondering on the waiting period, i realized i never owned a first-hand digital camera and slr.

my first camera was a very simple manual camera and i think i saw it somewhere in the junk pile. however, it's still working. my second first-owned camera is my holga. i've used it once but these days, the weather isn't sunny enough for nice photos so it's just sitting here.

as for my other digicams, well, one (canon)- the color is too yellow so the pictures are quite bright. the other (vivitar) knows a master because i'm the only one who knows that to use it means to have stable hands. otherwise, the photos will be hazy with the pixels scattered a bit to the trained eye. the latter also doubles for a lomo when i have shaky hands.

so, this new purchase at a real cheap price is making me all excited.

i bought this primarily because of the brand and the cheap price. okay, so, my secret addiction is online bidding that had to be put on hold as i was cash-strapped and still am.there are no samples of its pictures available on the net nor are there existing reviews.

i'll make my own review as soon as i get it and use it by late july.

the best eating place is not the cleanest of them all... who cares as it has the best liempo!

the protocol goes this way. approach the main table and choose your viand. the inihaw (broiled) food ranges from tilapia, stuffed milkfish, fillets of marlin, medium sized squid, and liempo (pork belly). there are also other choices such as bulalo (boiled beef bones), menudo, dinuguan, adobo, etc. in short, the dishes except for the fish are all major causes of a heart attack! vegetables are scarce and cost as much as the meat dishes.

there's either a fork or a tong on the tray of the broiled food. for the liempo, you have to choose your piece and put it on the chopping board. a lady will chop it for you.she'll hand that to you along with a saucer with chili and calamansi. another lady will approach where you are seated and hand over your cup of rice. another attendant will come over and give you a small bowl of hot and tasty beef soup. the table will have a bottle of soy sauce.

squeeze the calamansi. crush the chili. pour the soy sauce. pour some soup on your rice. dip a slice of pork in the soy sauce and spoon some rice with it into your mouth.

in all my years of eating inihaw na liempo, this is the best. even the fish is fresh and tasty. however, i actually go there for the free broth. it's what makes the experience fulfilling. the whole meal costs P60 with no drinks. the liempo can feed two persons. i don't order extra rice because it's P10, quite expensive.

so, what if the place is not exactly the cleanest. in fact, they've already changed the seats (still plastic but firmer now) and added a bottle of vinegar for the whole area. the floor has been cemented and the roof is made of canvas now. i don't go there during lunch time, though as seats will be hard to find.