September, 2009

City Life — No Comments
27
Sep 09

Bagyong Ondoy Aftermath

IMPORTANT NOTICE: To the readers, please INFORM and HELP anyone you can, pass along important information and contact numbers to everyone! Please be very careful when going through flooded areas, as currents can be strong and you may get injured by debris. The authorities have pleaded that no one try to take matters into their own hands and attempt rescues of sorts; please be patient and wait for as long as you can for help, and above all, stay safe!

UPDATE 6: Google Has This Fantastic Page Containing Just About Everything You Need To Know To Help And Contribute in The Relief and Recovery Efforts.

Photo by: Dan Saavedra

Photo by: Dan Saavedra

UPDATE 5, 6:25AM MONDAY: Some news items of interest:

Information on how to help with donations, and relief goods along with important contact numbers and hotlines after the jump.

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City Life — No Comments
26
Sep 09

Well This Sucks.

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UPDATE 3, 7:00AM, Sunday: The aftermath.

UPDATE 2, 4:00PM: Azrael has this good blog post that contains various media from different bloggers that may serve as somewhat of an overview of the current situation. You may want to take note of the following numbers he has posted:

If your area is in danger due to flood, dont hesitate to contact our National Disaster Coordinating Council Emergency Nos.: 912-5668, 911-1406, 912-2665, 911-5061
and Help hotlines: 734-2118, 734-2120

Also contact Meralco to shutdown electricity feed if your area is in high flood water.
mobile : 09175592824 or 09209292824

Click here to read Azrael’s post.

Around here in our area, the flood water has receded by 4 inches or so, so I suppose that the power-shut off scenario has been suspended for the moment. The rain continues, however; by my count, it has been raining for more than 16 hours now.

UPDATE 1, 2:50PM: Building management’s told us to charge whatever we need to charge because they’ll be shutting off the power later on, as the flood water looks to get up as high as the power transformer located on the first floor. I s’pose this means we’ll be going offline as well. Stay safe, everyone – don’t do anything risky unless you really have to!

ORIGINAL POST: It’s been raining for more than 12 hours now, and reports are coming in all over the metro of floods going up as high as the roofs of single-story homes. Lots of people stranded, lots of people to rescue. The military’s mobilizing, and those who have ‘em are breaking out the boats.

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Here in our community, floodwater’s chest deep in some streets. Cars are submerged, and water’s already coming into our building’s first floor, right up the steps. More photos after the jump.

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City Life / Foodtrip — No Comments
16
Sep 09

Man, What’s Wrong With Delifrance?

Whenever we drop by the Ayala Center, we tend to grab a bite to eat over at Delifrance in SM Makati. They got good food and at fairly reasonable prices. Over the past few months, however, we’ve been noticing that service has been getting shabbier and shabbier.

2009-09-16-Delifrance-Service-Sucks

Food arrives, there’s a good chance they’ll forget the cutlery and napkins. When you ask for the twain it’ll take just as long as the food you ordered to arrive, lest you get up and go to the counter yourself to get it. Used plates and glasses stay on the table long after the people who’ve eaten left. Even when there’s no one at the counter ordering food, not one idle waiter or waitress would bother to go on a quick bus run to collect the plates and take them to the kitchen. They stay there for up to ten minutes even. One table would take around just 30 seconds to clean up. Is that so hard to accomplish?

What’s more shameful is that this Delifrance is located at right between the bridgeway between SM Makati and Glorietta – a very high traffic area – and the fact that their unkempt dining area is exposed to an incredible amount of passersby and potential customers doesn’t seem to be a concern for them.

I don’t know if it’s a problem with the store manager or management at a higher level, but this is just inexcusable. You are not a carinderia on the street that you can simply not care if there’s a pile of used plates on the tables while people are looking to have a seat and order food. You are a respectable chain restaurant in a mall in Makati City.

I will admit that this isn’t exactly going to make me stop eating at Delifrance completely; They have delicious food at reasonable prices (although their coffee is still shit), but having to dine surrounded by empty tables with piles of used plates with leftovers in them is just not right.

Rants — No Comments
11
Sep 09

People Who Bathe In Perfume

If there is one thing that pisses me off more than someone with really bad body odor, it’s someone who bathes in perfume. Seriously, I don’t understand the rationale.

Just because a little bit of it smells nice, doesn’t mean drenching yourself in it will make you smell awesome. No matter how much they want it to, it just doesn’t work that way. It will make them stink and annoy the hell out of everyone else around them, but no one will say a word because it could hurt their feelings. Whether they are told or not, nothing will likely change anyway since the habit is likely to be so ingrained due to some sort of neurosis that causes them to do that which most people would normally have the sense to not do.

It just makes being around that person more difficult, and the best thing to do is to avoid this person. But then again, that may not always be possible.

Some of the worst offenders of this that I know are two of my grandmothers and some of my aunts. Just some time ago, I got stuck in the same vehicle with one of them, and it triggered a mild asthma attack. It also just so happens that I didn’t bring my asthma medication along with me, since asthma attacks have been a rare occurrence for me save for ones that are triggered by food allergies and, yeah… strong scents. So I asked to be dropped off at a 7-Eleven near our intended destination so I could chug whatever caffeinated drinks I could find as an emergency remedy (caffeine is a mild bronchodilator).

I had planned on not drinking coffee today because I overslept, and wanted to make falling asleep easier. That’s not happening now, I suppose. So beyond the two asthma attacks I suffered today, my sleep cycle is completely wrecked once again. Awesome.

Wisdom — No Comments
9
Sep 09

Ralph Waldo Emmerson On The Social Ramifications Of Success

“To earn the appreciation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends…This is to have succeeded.”

- Ralph Waldo Emerson