the most expensive box we own

 Different people are into different things. Some are into music, some are into food, for a while I was into collecting wind-up toys (because they’re just so darn cute) and my husband is into cars. Ask him something about them and even if he won’t always be able to give you the exact information that you need he will have something to contribute. He takes superb care of his car. Heck, it’s even cleaner than our place most of the time. 

 So I can imagine his surprise and utter disappointment when one day he turned the engine on and the “check engine” light was lit. Being the responsible car owner that he is, he immediately went to Honda to have it checked out. And yet again, he was disappointed to find out that the diagnostic equipment that his car was hooked up to indicated that there’s something wrong with his ECU (engine control unit) or more commonly known as the computer box. The Honda techs tried fiddling with it but the light was stubborn and stayed on. So finally they hooked up a new computer box to the car and the light went out. So the conclusion: get a new ECU. Simple enough right? But the thing is, it costs a lot of money (by our standards). A new one will cost around 50,000 pesos. Waaaaaaaaay too much than what we can afford right now. So he turned to Google. And it didn’t disappoint, Google came up with a several links to discussion boards and there my husband was able to read about shops that repaired this thing. 

After a couple of phone calls, we learned that repair fees ranged from 5-15,000. When asked for my advice, I told him to get a second opinion at another Honda casa, which he did. And they told him the same thing, he needs to get a new one. Being an old-ish car (Civic ’01), they didn’t have the part on hand. There was one at the Sta. Rosa plant but they needed a 15k down payment for them to procure it. The diagnosis cost around P900 which they’ll refund if he gets the part and has it installed there. So after more phone calls, where the general advise was to not mess around with just having the old box repaired since it was a really important part of the engine, he decided to bite the bullet and paid the DP. The part took 2 days to get from Sta. Rosa to Fairview but it was installed very quickly. Apparently, it was like a “plug and play” gadget. Installation was free because it was really simple. 

The whole thing ended up costing around P48,000+ (cost of computer box with a 6-month warranty). But after the ordeal, he didn’t regret springing for a new one. In the end it is really safety that matters. What’s worth doing is worth doing well, as the old saying goes.

Pursuit of Yuppyness

Walk down the streets of Ortigas and you'll see all sorts of people. You'll see rich folks with their perfectly pressed expensive-looking suits, the yuppies looking hip but professional, guys wearing sandwich ad boards trying to recruit people, letter couriers, etc. etc. Just by looking at them it's really hard to say which ones are earning loads of cash and which aren't (Sadly I belong to the latter and I'm not just saying that). And you'll be more surprised to hear that a lot of them/us come from far places. I even have a friend who works in Manila but goes home to Batangas. Every. Single. Day.
It takes me about an hour and a half each way to go to work. I spend about 200 bucks a day on transportation. That's a lot of money because I live in Fairview (classic joke: Ahhh..FARview to which I just think to myself "wow, I've never heard that one before"). So with the rising cost of, hmm..let's see, EVERYTHING, it's no wonder that within each office building there exists a micro-economy. Like this morning, I didn't have a packed lunch nor merienda with me and no spare money to spend either. But for lunch, I had pork guisado, salted egg, sliced tomatoes and rice wrapped in banana leaves. For merienda, I had sweet and crunchy turon. How did I manage this? Courtesy of Manang and Kuya. A very polite guy comes in at around 11 a.m. and stands at one corner of the pantry with a big bag full of food and softly says "Ma'am, lunch po" always with a shy, sweet smile. He has this small notebook where the choices are written down. And the best part is, you can get a meal and just put it on your tab. Same thing with the merienda. Manang has a multitude of snacks like spaghetti, pancit, bread pudding, sopas and a couple more goodies. One co-worker sells candied sampaloc (which are always sold out), another one sells coffee and catalogue items. To date I've bought maybe 10 bags of the sampaloc and 2 pairs of shoes. All delivered to the office and sometimes even to my desk. I find that just awesome!
It's Filipino entrepreneurship at it's best.

PS My brother says that to be allowed inside office buildings, these vendors bribe the security personnel with free food :)

The News Blues

What is up with the news? Is there a moratorium among journalists that they must only talk about negative things? On my way to work, I usually share a cab with my sister and brother-in-law. And almost 90% of the time, the radio is tuned on to Ted Failon and Noli de Castro's AM station. And 99.9% of the time, they broadcast ugly bits of news. Take this morning, the headlines were: a family massacred in Lapu-lapu Cebu, a couple stabbed to death by their bedspacer that couldn't pay rent anymore, traffic accidents, corrupt politicians and so on and so forth. And for their "entertainment" news, yesterday they talked about how Sarah Geronimo's sister forgot her passport, so their trip to Amsterdam was postponed. What in holy hell is the world coming to? I even remember a news article ages ago, I think I was over-the-shoulder reading somebody's tabloid, about Aiza Seguerra getting her period for the first time. I mean, seriously? That's news? What's sad is, I remember it to this day. So maybe they do this on purpose. Useless news gets good publicity and wide readership. So is it our fault? We all probably have something to do with it, it's a supply and demand kind of thing.

I'm pretty sure all these stressful news items contribute to free radical production in our bodies, which leads to premature aging and inevitably causes premature dying and the wiping out of our species. So logic will dictate that to delay the obliteration of the human race, the media should broadcast stories that uplift the spirit, not fricking pound it, slam it and smash it to bits. 

Show of hands, who wants more good news to be aired on TV and radio?