Friday – 3 Dec 2010

[smartads] First thing I’d like to do is to apologize for the 1 Dec post being late.  I actually finished it early, I just forget to press “Publish”.  I didn’t even notice it until the next morning.  I hope it didn’t cause anyone any problems.  I’m not sure how my not publishing my post on time would cause any problems, except Joyce said she gets withdrawals if she doesn’t get to read a new post.  I did make up for the Tagalog Word of the Day that I missed.  Also this post is going to be the longest that I have had to date, even though some of the things I want to say, I’m going to nix for today and put them in a post tomorrow.  I hope y’all don’t mind the longer posts.  Some people don’t like to read big, long posts.  Of course other people don’t mind and even others probably prefer it.  This won’t be the new norm, but in this case I have information bubbling over, especially since I went downtown and need to tell y’all a little something about each stop.

http://www.philstar.com/Article.aspx?articleId=626384&publicationSubCategoryId=68

An interesting article on how to get rid of evil spirits, which seems to be something a lot of Filipinos believe in.  This article talks about mixing something with holy water.  I don’t want to say what it is.  I want you to be curious enough about it to click on the link to find out yourself.

Although my previous attempts at starting another blog didn’t go well, I have been thinking about starting a blog that deals with strange, unusual and evil people, places and things.  I was looking into it, so that’s how the above link ended up in this post today.  The idea of the new blog would be to find all these things and put them all together on the same blog for easy access.  Maybe some of the articles you have seen before, but maybe not.  I would do my best to try to get things that were not in the national spotlight all the time.  Well at least I would use mostly the things that I never heard about before.  I’m not an avid news watcher, especially here, so most of my news come from Internet headlines.  I wouldn’t be putting anything about me on there, unless something strange, unusual or evil happen to me.  Not just recent things either.  I’m talking about things throughout time in the whole history of the world.  Do you think that that is something anyone out there would be interested in reading?  I’m also thinking of doing one that deals with just the opposite.  It would be about people, places and things that are good, wonderful and even saintly.  Both would take a lot of research time, but I don’t do much of anything anyway, except watch TV and update my fantasy football.  When football season is over, Week 17 for fantasy players, then I’ll need something more to do.  It’s coming up on Week 13 now, for those who don’t know.  So after 5 more weekends, I’ll need more to do with a lot of my time.

Since I’ve found what seems like good ad companies, AdClick and adsFUND, I would like to have them exposed to y’all and the rest of the public as much as possible without taking away from y’alls pleasure of reading.  So let me know if the ads are too much.  I’d like to explain a little bit about how these ads work.  I’m more familiar with adsFUND, so I’ll do it last.  AdClick is simply what they call a click ad.  Whenever someone clicks on it, I get money, even if nothing is bought.  It confuses me as to how they determine how much they pay me on this one.  Something about 50% of something when the ad is clicked.  I can tell you this though, there have been 2 clicks on this ad, and I have .06 in my account.  Supposedly this ad changes when an ad in the categories that I have chosen come up.  They give me 3 choices so if there is anything in particular that y’all would like to see placed on here let me know.  They don’t seem to have very much though, because I’ve only seen 3 different ads so far and it mostly just stays on the AdClick ad.  I’ll look into change that today.  The adsFUND is a little more clear to me, although I haven’t earned any money from them yet.  They say that when/if someone clicks on the ad on my site, I get 75% of something (versus 50% on the AdsClick), plus on this one, it says, that I’d also get 50% of any commission that is made on a sale that goes through this site.  So this one seems to be the better of the two, especially since I can put 3 ads on at the same time.  The ads on this one changes a little bit and I have a total of 6 ads, but some of them are repeated.  I’m not allowed to click on the ads myself nor am I allowed to give out compensation to y’all for clicking on it.  I wish you would check them out though.  Even if you don’t buy anything, I still get a little from it.  Who knows, maybe you’ll click on it and it’ll be something that really interests you after you read it, maybe not.

Obviously y’all must have noticed that I changed the theme of the blog, again.  I told you not to be surprised if that happen.  I think I’ve found one that has the widgets in good spots for me now.  I just want to be sure that y’all don’t have a problem with the way it looks.  There is a way to put my own background using this new theme, but I haven’t quite figured it out yet.  I just used one of the given backgrounds.  This rose colored one looked the best to me, but there are also a couple of blue ones that look decent and an almond colored one that I didn’t particularly like, but if y’all do, I wouldn’t mind having it.

Tagalog Word of the Day:  araw  (ah-rahow) means sun.

On Thursday 2 Dec 2010 I woke up at 0841 to the sound of falling rain.  I didn’t know it when I woke up, but that day would turn out to be one of my most interesting and productive days since we’ve been here.  I was hoping it wouldn’t rain too much too early because I was going downtown.  I guess all my hoping paid off because it quit raining shortly afterward.  The plan was to head downtown around about 1:00pm.  This seems to be the best time to go to the bank.  I guess it’s right after lunch time and everyone is already done with what they need to do.  I suppose it’s the same in the States, I just didn’t have to go to the bank that often in Texas.  I was told that the lunch hour here in the Philippines should actually be called the lunch hour and a half.  I don’t know if everyone gets that much time for lunch, but everyone that I’ve talked to about it, told me this is so for them.  An hour and a half, wow.  In Texas that would make going to an all-you-can-eat buffet worth the trip.  If I had an hour and a half and was still working at my last job, I’d probably be going to Sirloin Stockade a lot.

Getting back to present day and reality, we had another 1 minute brownout today.  This time I didn’t turn my computer off so fast, so all I had to do was wait for the internet to reconnect itself before I could continue.  If I knew they were going to be only the 1 minute brownouts, I’d never turn the computer off when the lights go out.  If after a few minutes the lights don’t come back on, I need to turn it off so it will have time to completely power down, before the battery quits supplying it power.  I was actually in the middle of writing some of this post yesterday when the brownout occurred.  I was writing about my idea of starting a new blog.

So when it got to be around about 1:00pm (right on plan), I got ready and went to see Ado.  He was ready already too.  As we were driving, I asked Ado about the sound the truck now makes on the left side.  He said that he looked at it and he thinks it’s only the tire.  He is suppose to look into the price of another tire before we make our trip to Tacloban on January 3rd (the new current traveling date according to Lita).  We would just use the current tire for an extra spare.

When we got downtown our first stop was Metro Bank.  They have the only reliable ATM for my Bank of America Check Card.  Sometimes a couple of the other ones work, but they haven’t recently.  As I was waiting in the unusually short line (only 2 people in front of me), I remembered that I forgot the camera again.  I’m going to have to try harder to remember that camera because I run out of pictures so quickly.  You never know when I’ll see something new and/or interesting to share with y’all.  I have to wait 21 working days for my last deposit to clear at UCPB, so I could only get money via the ATM, until next Tuesday, the 7th.

The next stop was UCPB.  I was making my monthly check deposit so it will be available for me next month.  Luckily  Christmas and New Year Day are on a bank non-working day, but December 30th is Rizal Day (a National holiday), so my money next month will be available to me on 4 Jan 2012.  I just had to write the 2012 to see what it looked like.  This is the very first time that I went into this bank, there were 2 tellers working and there was only 1 customer.  I got to walk right up to the counter.  Since it was only a deposit, it didn’t even take very long.  I’m use to waiting a long time, so when she finished so quickly, I was surprised and had to ask if she was finished.  I think that from now on, I will make it a point of making 2 trips to the bank per month instead of doing all transactions in 1 trip.  I’m thinking it will actually be less time making 2 trips, and I really need to get out of the house as much as possible anyway.  This will give me a reason for being out, because the trips are necessary, so I have to do them.

Next it was time to start spending some of that money I got out of the ATM.  First place was Globe to pay the telephone and Internet.  On Wednesday I got a call from these people telling me that I owed a past due amount.  I thought I had that all straightened out last month with the lady at our Globe office.  Evidently it wasn’t resolved in the system yet.  When I got in our Globe office, I explained to the lady what was going on and she did some checking.  She said that she had already done her part, but it wasn’t completed on the Manila end yet.  I told her that the guy I talked to on the phone was trying to get me to pay the whole amount that it says is due, and then they will issue credit when the problem is resolved.  I didn’t want to do that.  Thankfully she told me that all I would have to pay is the regular monthly payment.  She assured me that I would not be disconnected and the problem should be taken care of before the next bill is due.  I hope she’s right, but as long as they don’t cut off my Internet, I really don’t care about their internal problems.

When we left Globe, Ado wanted to stop by Mercury Drug to get a prescription filled for Precious because she had a fever.  I didn’t mind, I’m not in a hurry anymore these days like in Texas.  I was going to just wait in the truck, but decided to go in with him instead.  I like to look around at the groceries they have there to see if there is anything I would be interested in.  Plus I hadn’t got to see the lady that works behind the pharmacy counter for awhile.  No, she’s not a beautiful young lady.  She is however a nice looking lady and very friendly.  I talked with her a little bit and when we left I bought Ado and me a soft drink.  I got a Coke and he got a Royal Orange, both in cans, total price P39.

Now it’s time to pay the water bill.  Last time I went to pay the bill I went with Ramil and I took pictures of the place we went.  Well Ado brought me to the actually Water Department downtown to pay the bill this time.  I like the one downtown better.  It is inside and air conditioned.  Again the wait time was minimal.  When I arrived the security guard/doorman gave me #6 and customer #2 was at the counter.  After customer #4 finished, they called #6.  Evidently someone walked off with the #5 and they haven’t replaced it yet.  It was just numbers written on cardboard, protected by scotch tape, so it shouldn’t be that hard to replace.  Anyway it was my turn.  I paid the bill, got the change and asked for smaller bills because I would be needing smaller ones for my last stop on our little downtown trip.

The aforementioned last stop was Luciendo’s Barber Shop.  I needed a haircut so much because it was so humid and my head was itchy all the time unless I washed it 5 times a week.  This stop turned out to be my longest wait.  When I got inside I noticed that there were 3 barbers, all working on someone’s head.  There were 2 other customers waiting ahead of me.  Ado decided to wait outside in the truck, that he had parked in a comfortable spot.  When my turn came up, I got the barber in the middle.  He seemed to be the one in charge because the other barbers would give him the money they collected and he would put it away.  Don’t know why they didn’t just put it away themselves, but whatever trips their lights, is fine with me.  While I was getting my normal haircut, it occurred to me to ask the barber where they get their shaving cream.  I have been out of shaving gel for about 2 months and they don’t sell it at JustMar.  I forgot to look when we were at Robinson’s last time.  In a kind of twisted turn of fate, he told me that he buys it at Mercury Drug here in Calbayog.  Yes, that’s right, the same Mercury Drug store that I just left about 10 minutes before that.  I told you I don’t think about things like that.  If I don’t write it down or look around, most likely I won’t be getting it.  Now I’m already a handsome guy, as you can tell from my pictures, but after I got this haircut, I’m more handsome uthen even I could believe.  After the haircut, it was time to go home.  I decided to just get the shaving cream next trip, because I didn’t want to go back downtown from the barber shop.

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I think I am going to have to end this thing here.  I have something else that I really, really want to tell you, but his post is already about 400 words over my 2nd longest post.  It’s only 11:30am and I’m already ready to publish this baby.  I will, for sure have another post tomorrow.  The only problem is that the thing I really want to tell you, is what most of the pictures are on.  I don’t want to post the pictures before I tell you the story.  So unfortunately you will have to suffer through some of the older pictures instead of the new exciting ones I got.  I meant to put everything in this post, but due to the content and my blah, blah, blahing, I ran up the word count to over 2730 now.  It’ll be at around 2940 by the time I finish.

As always please remember to rate the posts and let me know if there is anything I can help you with or find out for you.  If you feel so inclined, please check out the ads on the blog too.  You don’t have to buy anything if you don’t want to of course, just have a look around.  I appreciate as much blog exposure as I can get.  Don’t forget to let me know if you think my new blog ideas are worthwhile.

Salamat, Palaam

P.S.  I’d like to start putting a short, usually non-Filipino related thing here.  It’s called Useless Knowledge.  Let me know what you think.  Today’s Useless Knowledge is:  According to manufacturer Spalding, the average life span of an NBA basketball is 10,000 bounces.