Tag: cars

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Wedding Supplier Review: Don Robert

If you’re looking for vintage cars, there’s practically only one place to go to: Don Robert’s Bridal Cars. I personally preferred a modern bridal car such as a Chrysler 300C (incidentally, they have those too), but there’s a reason why they call it BRIDAL car and not couple car or groom car :P

Our first choice was the 1932 Studebaker. But it was no longer available. Our second choice was the 1953 Adenauer. Guess what? It’s also no longer available. So we settled for the Jaguar Mk II . Word of advice: book far ahead in order to get the car of your choice. Don Robert is nice and easy to talk to so it shouldn’t be a problem.

On the wedding day, the car and driver arrived on the scheduled time. Which is to in time for pictorials. However, the photographers decided not to do any pictorial with the car before the wedding so it ended up just sitting pretty in front of the hotel. And pretty it was. It was clean both inside and out. And though the new-car aura was a long faded memory, everything was completely functional and comfortable. There were no shakes and rattles even from the engine. It definitely was well-maintained.

A word of advice though: One thing with vintage cars is that no matter how well-maintained they are, the more vintage they are, the proportionally higher then chance of breaking down. So make sure to keep a reasonably presentable white car as backup bridal car. My own car, driven by Jim (thanks fafi!) was pressed into service as backup car. We didn’t have a breakdown but the driver was careful and drove slow.

Which takes me to another word of advice: Allocate enough time for the slow drive as well as pictorials on the way when you do your booking. Otherwise you’ll end up having to pay for the excess time and doing a financial transaction from inside the car. It’s like taking a taxi cab ride right on your wedding day. Not nice.

But all in all, good service and experience.

Cost: P12,350 plus P4,000 for excess time of 2 hours
Rating: 4/5

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Bumper Scraper

The less-than-a-year old paint job on my bumper got ruined again. Michelle and I were driving along Ortigas when some stupid family driver (why do stupid people get to drive?)  swerved from my LEFT towards Xavier St. on the right. He almost made it but his rear end clipped my front bumper scraping some paint off and exposing the black plastic. And when he got down he even had the balls to say it was my fault!

There’s not sense talking to a useless moron so I talked to the owner who was inside. She readily admitted it’s her driver’s fault and she offered that the insurance take care of it (fat chance!). She was with her kids. Apparently, she was bringing them to school. Here’s their stupid driver endangering not just other motorists but also the owner and her kids. Too bad I wasn’t able to advise her to fire the driver. But I sure hope she does.

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The EDSA Bus Hazard

A bus ran over a two-year old girl and her mother at EDSA yesterday. The girl died while her mother sustained injuries. It was not too long ago when a prominent doctor’s car got hit by a bus killing the doctor and causing the car to go up in flames. That and many more.

Every driver knows how hazardous EDSA is with all those buses. They weave in and out of their dedicated bus lanes and cause accidents with private vehicles, other buses, and pedestrians.

And when they’re not speeding around like the maniacs that they are, they’re causing monstrous traffic jams at intersections where they wait and wait and wait for passengers. One thing you would notice is that most of the buses have few passengers if any. You have to wonder, do we need so many buses and bus companies?

It’s too bad that the government, is not acting on this menace. For as long as they don’t do anything, there will be no justice for all victims of accidents involving buses. But I wouldn’t hold my breath for that. There’s just too much money involved.

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Locked Out

Michelle and I went to faraway Nasugbu, Batangas for our canonical interview and pre-canna seminar. While registering at the parish office, I realized I forgot the keys inside the car. The canonical interview was about to start so there was pretty much nothing we could do.

Right after the interview, we asked around for a locksmith. We eventually ended up asking some cops and one of them called and even went to fetch a locksmith he knows. Unfortunately, the guy was off on some errand and we had no choice but to wait. When he finally arrived, one of the cops accompanied all of us to the church parking lot where the car was.

The locksmith got on with unlocking the door with a tensioner and a pick. It was slow going but  it’s comforting to know that for my car locks, it’s not as easy as using a wire as I’ve seen done on a friend’s car. Eventually, he succeeded in turning the lock but he found out he was turning it the wrong direction! So he started again on the other direction, gave up, moved to the other door and eventually succeeded.

Once the door was open, the cop checked my license and registration which was a good thing: he’s doing his job. Once he was satisfied, I thanked him and he left. I paid the locksmith, thanked him, and he too left. It was a just modest amount and at least I didn’t have to go back home just to get my spare key. Whew!

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Pacquio vs Hatton

Michelle and I we’re on the way to Tagaytay for a photo shoot when we heard over the radio that Pacquiao won. On the second round, no less. Soon as I got home, I downloaded the fight. It helped that the coverage was only for two round so in just a short while I was already watching the fight. What can I say? Pacquiao was awesome! He literally demolished Hatton. He just keeps getting better and better.