Month: September 2008

General

Savings At The Point-of-Sale

By on Monday, September 29, 2008

They did it again. The same fast food joint almost shortchanged me for the third time (that I know). They did it before twice, shortchanging me about 20 centavos. Good thing I noticed while I was still inside the store and I was able to go back to the counter and ask for the missing amount. Today they shortchanged me 93 centavos. But this time I was ready, I asked for the missing amount right away and, as usual, they gave it to me right away. Imagine if on the average each customers get shortchanged 50 centavos. It can add up pretty quick.

Then there is the deferred change when the cashier doesn’t give you your change right away (mainly because of the coin crisis, but that’s another story). Sometimes you forget and when you finally remember, you are already too far away and you decide it’s too small to bother going back for. But it can add up pretty quick.

Finally, there’s there’s the combo savings when you order several items and there’s a combo package of items that’s exactly the same but is priced quite a bit lower (in my case P10). The cashier usually don’t tell you about the savings. Probably because of way too many combo packages available to begin with. Again, it can add up pretty quick.

The savings may be small, but they can easily become a quite significant amount. At times of economic hardship like these, that’s quite important.

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General

Silly People’s Improv Theater aka SPIT

By on Tuesday, September 23, 2008

Val mentioned SPIT to me quite a long time ago but I never got to watch it until tonight with Michelle. SPIT does improvisational theater or improv. Basically, they do an impromptu show often involving the audience along the way. It’s hard to describe or imagine but it’s pretty enjoyable. It’s a welcome deviation from all those comedy bars hosted by gay (not that there’s anything wrong with that per se) comedians whose brand of humor is ummmm jologs. Granted, SPIT drifted towards genitalia jokes once or twice during the evening. But by and large, their humor is intelligent, witty, and almost always genuinely funny. Definitely a good watch. You can usually catch them Tuesdays at the Mag:net cafe High Street and Thursdays at the Mag:net cafe Katipunan.

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General

Tortellini Bolognese

By on Monday, September 22, 2008

Michelle and I have been planning to cook a pack of tortellini we bought at Santi’s a few weeks back. Tonight, we finally cooked it and topped it with ragu based on Mario Batali’s recipe.

1 pack tortellini
5 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
3 tablespoons butter
1 carrot, finely diced
1 medium onion, diced
1 rib celery, finely diced
1 clove garlic, sliced
¼ kilo pork, ground
¼ kilo beef, ground
1 can pureed tomato
1 can peeled tomato
1 cup red wine
1 cup milk
salt and ground black pepper
cheese, for grating

In pot, boil water. Once boiling, add tortellini and let cook for 10 minutes or so. Drain and put in a plate.

In a pan, heat the olive oil and butter over medium heat. Add the carrots, onions, celery, and garlic and sweat over medium heat until the vegetables are translucent and soft but not browned, about 10 to 15 minutes. Add the beef and pork over high heat, stirring to keep the meat from sticking together until browned. Add the tomato, milk, and wine and simmer over medium-low heat for 1 to 1 1/2 hours. Season with salt and pepper, to taste, and remove from the heat.

Pour sauce over tortellini and top with grated cheese.

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General

Old Company, New Company, Same Company

By on Saturday, September 20, 2008

It’s my first month with a new company. Although there are vast differences, e.g. the previous company is a BPO while the new one is a consulting company, there are also certain parallels. I guess companies really are in essence very similar, they just vary in scale and scope.

For example, on the IT side, there’s only a handful of support people serving so many. The end result is similar: one week service record turnover, monitors lining the hallway, etc. People are also people bitching about access control. Now I know how it feels. But that’s another story. Hahaha.

On the Software Development side, the new company is so much better. They have a strong project management discipline going as well as a consistent development life cycle. But, although there’s a long way to go, there are similarities. Were focusing on Java, frameworks like Spring and Hibernate, we’re moving towards an iterative software development cycle, etc. It’s definitely a good thing to know that we were on the right track.

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General

Ford Focus vs Hyundai i30

By on Sunday, September 7, 2008

With the upward trend of fuel prices, people are finally seriously looking at diesel which used to be less expensive than gasoline (not anymore) and lasts farther than gasoline. But there are limited choices for diesel in the market. At the car segment there was only the Ford Focus TDCI and a bunch of Hyundais (Elantra, Accent, Getz). The last two were small cars and the Elantra didn’t really succeed in the market and is now replaced by the i30. Unfortunately, the i30 suffers from the same problem of high price. Sure it looks good, but it’s only has a 1.6L displacement compared to the Focus’ 2.0L.And it falls behind the Focus in other ways. Will it suffer the same fate as the Elantra? I hope not. We need more diesel vehicles.

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