Review of Bare

Review of Bare by Blue Rep

Review of Kwentong Bata

Review of Kwentong Bata by PHSA

Trawling through Children's Wear for a Frostings Cupcake

Whoever heard of putting a cupcake stand inside the children's wear section of a department store? That would make sense if the owners of Frostings Cupcakes had thought to inform the guards and the Information Booth of EDSA Shangri-la where they are, but since nobody knew they even existed, it took me nearly an hour of going up and down the escalators and going around the food court before I could find them. And that was only because I texted a friend for help and my friend texted another friend who had actually been there. Bah.

They need to put some more effort at in-store promotions. Not all cupcake buyers have kids, you know, and the children's wear department is the last place they would look. And the escalators of EDSA Shangri-la are freaky confusing. If it wasn't a slow weekend, I would have given up after 5 minutes of fruitless inquiries. I'm just saying.

For people who want to find them, I'm going to be helpful and post their whereabouts:

• 3rd Level Jumpstreet West Wing, Robinsons Galleria, Quezon City
• 3/F Children's Division, Shangri-La, Rustans, Mandaluyong City
• 4/F Rustans Makati, Ayala Avenue, Makati City

Telephone numbers 983.3880 or 983.7064. Email info@frostingscupcakes.com.ph

Or you can go to their website at frostingscupcakes.com.ph. If you're like me, you will click eagerly at the Freebies link, only to find out that it's just an online flashgame of match the cupcake. What's worse, it doesn't have a continue game option so if you fail to match the cupcakes in time, you have to go back to start. One, do not call it Freebies if I'm not getting a free edible cupcake or a discount coupon, and two, I am not going back to start. Bah.

It seems like this company's only saving grace are their cupcakes. In fairness, the cupcakes were as good as they looked. On my frustratingly exhausting and escalator-filled visit to the Shangri-la stall, I ordered Smores Choco Caramel, Carrot Cake, Peaches and Cream, Strawberry and Cream, Lava and Braso de Mercedes. None of them was a fail.They weren't aggressively sweet, they were reasonably priced (where cookies can cost up to P25/piece and a loaf of Gardenia bread costs P55, yes, P35 for their regular cupcakes is reasonable. Premium is P50, Fruit is P65 and Extra-premium is P70.) and there were enough flavors to choose from. And besides, they look pretty.



Admittedly, Frostings is less of an effort to go to than Sonja's in far-away Serendria. But it's still an effort. And when I want to stuff a sweet cupcake in my face, admittedly, it's so much cheaper to just buy a 12-pack of Lemon Square's Dream chocolate cupcake. At P41 a pack (Admittedly, no pretty icing though).

Organizing in Pockets

My sister and I stumbled into this bag organizer from Pockets several weeks ago. She's using them now to keep her keys, MRT card, flash drives, lipstick and coin purse portable. It's a good thing for people like me who hardly change bags because it's such a hassle trying to figure out if I forgot anything, and my sister has been known to leave the house without her wallet because she left it in her other bag. The fabric seems sturdy but since the organizers are new, I will have to wait a few months to see if the material will fray. Their website also looks professionally done. I like it very much. I also feel heartened by the fact that they had their design patented which, to me, is another mark of their professionalism. Very few creators and entrepreneurs know their rights and I'm glad the people behind Pockets do.

They don't seem to have a stall but can only be found in bazaars, where we discovered them. This would be good if they were an impulse buy but now that I know about them and want more, I can't exactly plan into going to the nearest mall and picking up two or three. They have an online order form and they can mail one's orders, but I don't want to have to pay extra just to have one or two pieces shipped to me.

Lookit what we bought:



From their site:

Do you always find yourself forever digging into your bag for small stuff that you wish you had pockets to keep in? Do you have bags that just don't have enough pockets for additional storage? Our flexible and removable set of pockets gives your bag that colorful lining that creates space to handle almost everything you need.Our Pockets bag organizer, stands on its own and CONFORMS to the shape of your bag, making small items easy to find, giving your bag that bigger space for the larger items..like wallets, notebooks or planners.

Changing bags is made easier by moving the entire organizer from one bag to the other. We have different fabric designs added each month.

Pockets has other items, but what I liked most, next to the organizer, is the their tidy bag with its external pockets that can handily contain bottles of shampoo and conditioner and stuff. I plan to use it to hold chargers, adaptors and other electronic items.

The Beetle is Back

and it's adorable :)

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Living in a Car

Watching all the news about the collapse of so many investment banks, I wonder how the middle-class and the barely surviving are coping with the sudden loss of their jobs and probably also their homes. With the mortgage due, rising debt, a depressed job market and no more paychecks to look forward to, how do they cope? Do they all pack up their belongings and live in their cars like this woman did? Her Wanderingscribe blog is a powerful introspective work about how she survived being homeless, jobless and living in her car.

Seems simple: get a job so that I can save enough to rent somewhere to live. Completely stupid that I can't do that. Would be hard to hold down a job when you haven't got an address, but not impossible. Because I could carry on living in car, parking in hospital carpark in mornings and using the showers there to get washed and changed in, until I can save enough to get place of my own. But because haven't worked for almost two years now, no-one will give me a job. Not even the type of job you don't need qualifications for. Suppose there must be too many people wanting those. Have been signed up to three email job search sites since September. Everything from vacancies for basic filing and reception work, to retail, to qualified solicitor comes through my inbox everyday. Fire CV off for all the ones I might have reasonable chance at these days. Try to be focussed and realistic, but always end up sending lots off. Some days feel like I could do anything, other days need to run back and hide in my car - days when I'm totally lost without the comfort of trees. Apply for mostly receptionist or call centre jobs, which would be perfect while I adjust back into things and try to get back on my feet. Have never even got to the interview stage yet though, not with a single one.

Can't go to job centre etc. because they don't know that I am homeless. The same with the Housing Advice people. They won't even switch on their computers or talk to me until I tell them my address. But I obviously can't do that, because they can't know that I don't have one. If they find out, I risk loosing my money, and then it's all over. Because to get benefit money in the first place I am using my old address. I know that is wrong, but if they knew I was living nowhere they would stop it. Immediately. Then I would be left to the wolves — or have to go in and register as 'of no fixed abode' and go queue up with all the other homeless people every week, or get nothing — which, at the moment, feels about the same thing to me. I just can't bring myself to do it. Whenever I think that I might have to, that I've got to the stage where I can't do it on my own anymore and can't put off getting help, and will have to swallow the rest of my pride and go and register as of 'no fixed abode' I just panic. Feels like one trauma too many.

Wandering Scribe
Peanut Butter and Photographs
16 February 2006

Wes Grueninger over at Motive Magazine has an excellent 12-point tip for living in one's car. And Romana S, in Australia, seems to have taken to living in her car as a choice. Over at her blog, she gives valuable tips for people who want to, or have to, live in their cars. I agree with her about the impracticability of maintaining a gym membership to have access to showers and toilets. Gym membership is money that is better spent towards food and gas. However, a lot of the blogs and forum posts made by car dwellers in America make this point. I suppose that's their former life talking, when they still had access to gyms and Starbucks and wall sockets to charge their mobiles and laptops with.

Color Me Pink

Since starting at my new office, my inner girly girl has been awakened. I didn't use to dress up, and I was always in a pants suit because it was the easiest thing to put together in the morning. Besides, if I wore a skirt to my former office, I would have stood out among all those suits. I was starting to send out Hilary Clinton vibes when the person I really wanted to be was Tina Fey. My new officemates were more girly than I was, and by association, I began to feel more comfortable dressing up. One day, I took the plunge and bought three dresses from Greenhills. P650 each! Previously, I would have deferred wearing them until I had a party or a dinner to go to but I started wearing them to the office paired with a tailored jacket and it was fine. Now, on to the next level, which is makeup.

I would love to win these A Design designer brushes being offered by The Little Window Shoppe for my starter set.

Things to Do, Part 1

Two weeks to go before I leave and I still have to do the following:

1. Go to the dentist
2. Go to doctor
3. Buy pearls from Quiapo
4. Have photographs developed for A as souvenir
5. Ask when checks will be processed
6. Buy dollars
   
7. Buy an Asus EEEpc
8. Buy rubber shoes
9. Buy sandals or walking shoes
10. Buy underwear (I never leave on a long trip without new underwear)
11. Meet up with C and M for their gifts for A
12. Submit my pending assignments
    

A Long Wait for Furniture

Our Home finally sent assemblers to put together the wardrobe I bought from their furniture sale at SM Megamall last week. While the pieces were delivered promptly the next day, it actually took them a whole week to get back at us even though they promised me that the assemblers would come one day after delivery. If I hadn't called up last Friday, I doubt if we would have heard anything from them. So for a whole week, we had two boxes cluttering up the room, and laundry not put away properly. And no word of explanation for the extremely long delay. Sucks. I doubt if I'm going to go to Our Home for our future furniture needs. I mean, what if I had bought a bed? We would still be sleeping on the floor.

I hope Casamia Furniture Center President Philip Yao hears about this.

Building Up My Travel Fund with BPI Direct Save-up

BPI is offering a new product called BPI Direct Save Up, an automatic savings account that you can program to deduct a certain amount from your main account once a week, every other week, once a month or twice a month.

I first became interested in this product because it provides group insurance coverage. I wanted to get one for the parents but they only cover up to age 60. I get coverage, I guess, but I already have a fully-paid up life insurance policy. What I really want is for BPI to offer group health coverage instead. *sends a message out to the universe*

I programmed mine to automatically save P500 a month. I didn't think it was a lot at first but actually, it comes up to P6,000 after 12 months. If they had offered this earlier in the year, I would have money for Christmas presents by now. As it is, I'll have money for my next travel.

Right now, I don't have any consumerist goals other than paying for my next plane tickets. I had been thinking of buying an Asus EEEpc to make it easier for me to go to meetings and stuff, but I've already set aside money for that.

If I didn't have any travel plans, I think I will save up to make a down payment on an apartment which I can then rent out. Or I could use that P6,000 and invest it in stocks. Hmmm. For a long time, my goal was just to get a higher salary and be liquid, but maybe it's time to trade up. A lot of people dream about being entrepreneurs or retiring at a certain age and living on passive income. I think I will put that on my list.

Poll

Baby Welcome

Thanks to The Little Window Shoppe, I stumbled upon a fabulous gift that would be perfect for my goddaughter's new sister: baby slings by Mod Mum. The Little Window Shoppe is actually holding a contest for them right now.

Amazing Thailand

I was in Thailand!

Healthcare is so hard to find

I have taken a violent dislike to health care agent assigned to me because he doesn't use Please and Thank You in any of his texts to me. Also, he uses txtspk. And, despite telling him that I will not be sending any sensitive information by fax, he still insists that I do so. We haven't sealed the deal yet and I do not want to have to deal with him in the future in the event *knock on wood* I have to use the card. I can already foresee that he won't be as solicitous as my insurance agent. So how does this work? Can I pull out my application with him and have another agent process it without any fallout?

Ploning

Watch Ploning, it's the bestest movie evah!

Grumpy Dispatch from Hanoi

Apparently, the people who use Hostelworld are easily pleased. Otherwise, they wouldn't have given high points to Hanoi Guesthouse for service. The staff assured us by email that our booking was okay and that they were sending an airport car for us, which was important because it was our first time to go to Vietnam. Since our plane was coming in at midnight, we didn't want to deal with taxis through the unfamiliar streets of Hanoi. When we got there, there was no hotel pickup. We waited two hours and nothing! We even tried calling Duong Manh Tien, which was the name on the emails from the hotel but he wasn't answering. It was too late to find another hotel so we took a taxi. The kind airport guard negotiated with a taxi for us and made sure we got a reasonable rate. Initially, the drivers wanted to charge us US$20-30! You could almost hear the horror in the airport guard's voice. Finally, he found us one that charged only US$15, which was reasonable, given how far the airport was from the city center.

Our taxi had a difficult time finding Hanoi Guesthouse which was hidden in the side streets in a not so savory area of the city. Then when we got there, the hotel staff told us that they were fully booked despite confirming our reservation through email twice! Instead, they brought us to a sister hotel several buildings away. When we got to Hanoi Phoenix, to our horror, we were expected to climb up several flights of stairs to the 6/F to our room. We were exhausted from the trip and the wait at the airport, it was 3 am in the morning, we had been up for nearly 19 hours, and there was no elevator. Worse, when we tried to complain about the shabby treatment to the staff, he laughed at us.

If it hadn't been 3 am, we would have walked out then and there. You can be sure we spent our first morning looking for better accommodations and checked out of there the first possible moment.

Hanoi Guesthouse's business model sucks. Not only did they fail in their promise to pick us up, but they also booked us in a different hotel which was not part of the plan. It's hard to trust a business that violated our expectations several times: first, by failing to send a taxi when they said they would; second, by failing to provide us with a room despite assuring us that we had a reservation; third, by getting us to book in a different hotel when our expectations were that we were going to be staying with them. We had no idea about the other hotel, what its amenities were and whether it would fit our budget. True enough, walking up to a 6/F room with only a flimsy door lock and no chain on the door was not part of our plans.

What this budget hotel did to us so ruined our first day that it spoiled our happy expectations of Vietnam and almost made us want to go back home. Certainly, not the best way to promote the tourist industry, buggers! If you promise something, make sure you fulfill your promise. Otherwise, tell the customer that you won't be able to give what they ask. If you had treated us right, we would have stayed all of six days. Instead, you only got our custom for one night, and you can be sure that I will not be recommending your hotel to any of my family or friends.

PS. It happened to them too!

Slight Detour

Haven't been blogging as I have been busy organizing a trip to Vietnam next month. I haven't booked a hotel yet as the reviews on Hostelworld and Asiarooms are paralyzing me. Why are there so many unhappy people with their hostels? How can I be sure that where I'm staying will be clean, safe and honest? I can't and the internet is not helping!!! I've quit looking at the sites that cater to tourist and resorted to looking at people's blogs and Flickr accounts for a more honest assessment of the country and the accommodations. And apparently, nobody thinks to post a breakdown of their expenses. It's so hard to anticipate how much I'll be spending, and I don't really want to depend on my card. One thing, though: I've decided not to book through third-party websites and just email the hotel directly. I don't feel comfortable giving my credit card information online, and if I can pay in cash, so much the better. If I feel that I should quit the hostel after only a night, at least they won't be able to charge me additional fees except for what I'm willing to hand them.

Pictures when I return.

Lolcats

Here are our kittens doing a Lolcat. In a tree!

$40!

I earned $40 turking for the past two days. Whooop! Most of it were from the Are These Items Different hits which at one time reached 130,000, which is one of the highest in recent history. Checking to see if all those batteries and cables and screws were different nearly drove me to tears, but look! Shiny! *points at $40*

Of course, I am a mere amateur next to my fellow turkers. One was able to wipe off 12,000 hits for the past week. At $0.01 a hit, that's $120 right there. Over 1/8 of my target!

I know I could be making a lot more money out of this. Of course the money is better now that I have DSL. I still remember when I was trying to do this via dial-up. Not only was my internet connection sooooo slow, there were too few hits. Before a page even loaded to let me accept the hit, it was already gone. It took me the whole 4 hours allocated to me by Castingwords to download their transcription hits, much less transcribe them.

However, I have a real life job and if I don't do my job, I will rue more than the loss of $0.01.