I don’t know but lately I’ve been finding things to be pretty expensive here. Take for example a Nalgene bottle. It is priced online at $5.95 or P250 at the current supposed exchange rate of P42:$1. But it is priced at up to P900 or an effective rate of P151:$1!!! Another example, an Oakley Square Wire. It is priced online at $150 or P6,300. But here it is priced at P9,900 or an effective rate of P66:$1. Finally, there’s the soon to be released Asus EEE PC 900. According to Yugatech, It will be priced in the US at $549 or P23,058. But it will actually be priced at P33,900 here or an effective rate of P61.75:$1. Hardware, software, books, medicine, even hair gel… the story is the same. Whether due to bloated profit margins, VAT, tariffs, or whatever, it seems were we’re being screwed by both greedy capitalists and, worse, the government.
I’ve been meaning to upgrade to WordPress 2.5 since it came out way back end of March but I was always either busy or lazy. But I finally did tonight while waiting for the time. But of course, I still just took the 5-minute upgrade procedure. As you can see, it worked :P
So what’s new? A lot. According to the release notes: multi-file uploading, one-click plugin upgrades, built-in galleries, customizable dashboard, salted passwords and cookie encryption, media library, a WYSIWYG that doesn’t mess with your code, concurrent post editing protection, full-screen writing, and search that covers posts and pages.
I’ll see how nice or not these things are soon enough.
Since I’m in a “hateful” mood today. I might as well put one in on why I hate users. I hate it when they see a job that can easily be done, they immediately think that it’s easy for a computer program to do exactly the same. Even worse, they expect your programming to be done just as quickly as they can do the job. Come on users! Give yourselves some credit! Except for some, you are much more complex, much more intelligent than a computer program. It takes a lot of programming for a computer program to be able to do what would seem simple to you.
I get to the office expecting to see the output of a program we left running on my laptop through the weekend only to find out that that Windows Automatic (but stupid) Update has initiated a reboot. Argh!
Snow Peak claims their Trek Starter Kit is “the pinnacle of backpacking cookware”. It’s most definitely a lofty claim but I tend to agree with it.
Before, I relied on a Trangia mess kit to hold my Campingaz Twister CV270 stove (this has got to be the stove with the best bang for the buck), stainless steel utensils, and film canister condiment dispensers. The gas canister, I keep separately since it’s quite big. It’s a mixed bag of gear but somehow they worked very well for my needs and I was very happy with the system. Up until I misplaced the stove (doink!) and had to buy a new one.
I decided on the The Snow Peak Trek Starter Kit upon the recommendation of Bing. It is composed of a stainless steel Giga Power stove, a titanium pot with fold-out handles, a pot lid with a spout, and a titanium spork. Everything, including two gas canisters fit together in a carrying sack into a small, elegant, and light package.
But even better, everything works very well, too. The Giga Power is one awesome gas canister stove. I’ve always preferred gas canister stoves because of their small size, light weight, and ease of use. Their only problem is poor performance in the cold (not too much of a problem where I go) and wind (just add a windscreen).
Going back to the Giga Power, it screws on to the canister and its wire pot supports fold out to provide a stable platform. Ridges on the pot supports ensure that the pot stays in place. Turn the long (reduces the chance of accidentally touching hot parts) control valve, light it up, and see it burn HOT (10,000BTUs) ! If it had a piezoelectric igniter and maybe if it were titanium it would be perfect.
In the pot, you can cook noodles with egg for breakfast. Or cook rice topped with viand for lunch or dinner. Eat with the spork. Then afterward, boil chocolate or coffee and pour it out of the spout or drink from the pot itself (after cooling a bit, of course).
A kitchen in a small package. Need I ask for more?
Rating: 5/5