MMMiii!

~ Say it out Loud! ~



Month: May, 2008

Veoh.com

Yes, that’s what I’ve been busy with lately. After AznV.tv, Veoh.com would probably be my second favorite video streaming site. I like Veoh better for anime because I won’t have to use my precious premium account for something that I can watch somewhere else. Quality-wise, for anime, they’re just about the same. My main problem with aznv is just that I don’t think they ever had mac users in mind to begin with. I have to use VLC which is something I don’t really like.

Wouldn’t it be nice to have a really huge screen with theater seating

Did you know that soon, analog TVs and Radios are going to be replaced by iTVs and iRadios and so on? It’s not really too far in the future for the US or other really developed countries like Japan and Korea, but for the Philippines, that would take maybe 50 more years.

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31 May, 2008 (09:28) | Anime, Internet, Tech | By: Mi



How to Get Your PayPal Philippines Account Verified

I had this problem before. I had a lot of money in PayPal and what I used to do was have someone from the States withdraw it to his bank account and then send it to me through Xoom, which is so shitty and expensive. That was before PayPal opened its door to the Philippines and its local banks.

When PayPal DID allow us to add Philippine bank accounts, you still couldn’t withdraw because your limit would be $0 even if you added a bank account. What you needed was to get verified and you had to have a credit card.

Or so I thought.

After wasting my money buying things online because I thought that I couldn’t get my money from PayPal, I met Geri of websaytko.com - raredog’s chronicle and told me about UnionBank’s Debit Card - eon. I know that I knew about it or heard about it before but I can’t remember why I rejected the idea. Probably because of reading through people’s comments in a forum before. I really don’t know anymore.

Ah! I just remembered. I didn’t have enough valid IDs. I only had a company ID. That’s why I couldn’t get one.

And so… to get a local visa debit card

  1. You have to have valid IDs. Government-issued cards are always the best for this, like TIN card, SSS, etc.
  2. Go to any UnionBank branch and apply for the eon or apply online. If you apply online, you’ll just need to designate a pickup point and go there and pay the P350 fee.
  3. Since this is for PayPal purposes, I would suggest paying P500 so there will be an instant deposit of P150. Getting the card takes 3-5 business days and when you get the card itself, it takes about 3 days to be activated.
  4. Register for online banking. I’m not sure how long it takes, I think 3-5 business days before you get online access.
  5. Get your PayPal account verified. Usually it takes 3-5 business days because it takes time to credit, but since you have online banking, it will instantly appear in your transactions (PayPal takes $1.95 from you, hence the P150… which will be returned in a couple of days) and then you could get your PayPal verified instantly.
  6. To withdraw, I would suggest just withdrawing it to the UnionBank account since it also acts like an ATM card.
  7. The minimum amount to withdraw to the bank account without additional charges is P7000. Below that, I believe there is a P50 charge or something.

Then voila! You’ve got a debit card and you could now withdraw your money painlessly from PayPal. You could also do online transaction in case they don’t accept PayPal, like if you want to buy Primera labels.

Another good thing with having a verified PayPal is eBay. You can link your PayPal account to your eBay and everything would go smoothly.

This post was written for Sarah which was supposed to have been done almost 3 weeks ago. Sorry for being so lazy and forgetful and I won’t make being busy an excuse. <3

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26 May, 2008 (12:01) | Random | By: Mi



Creature Comforts

creature-comforts
Wouldn’t it be nice to have a bigger bed? A bed where you can stretch your arms and legs and sleep in crazy positions?

I’m going to be rich one day. I’m going to buy a house with vinyl siding and shingled roofs, and large airy rooms with centralized heating or airconditioning. My bed would be huge. I mean HUGE. And I’ll have a computer with a huge lcd monitor hung on the wall with wireless mouse and keyboard so I can stay in bed and play with the computer.

=_=

It’s just that after sleeping over at Iks and Eelai’s place where I was able to sleep comfortably on their couch and was able to stretch out while sleeping, I kind of got spoiled. I want to have a bed again. I miss my old bed. It was kind of a futon and just on the floor. It’s not possible to have that kind of bed in this house though. It’s rat and mice infested and it floods during the rainy season.

*sigh*

I want my old bed.

I want a new computer.

I want a new bed.

I want a new computer >_>.

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25 May, 2008 (05:22) | Random | By: Mi



The Wensha Spa-smic Experience

the-wensha-spa-smic-experience

I mentioned a couple of days ago that this year was the worst birthday I’ve ever had, but that was just the day itself. The days I spent celebrating it was one of the best, and the highlight of my 3-day birthday celebration was the time I spent at the Wensha Spa in Manila. We only had the Wensha Full Body Massage or whatever you call it but at that time, I thought that everything was so worth it.

We started our Wensha experience by getting naked. Yup–Naked. Inside the jacuzzi/hot water pool, you have to be naked. You can’t wear anything except the bracelet thingie for the locker (which was cool, by the way. It was magnet operated). At first me and my officemates were shy around each other but we didn’t want to miss this experience so we just went along with the flow. After about 10 minutes in the pool, we were walking around naked already.

After the soak, you have a choice of either a sauna or a steam bath. We tried both, but I really couldn’t stand the steam bath. I felt like I couldn’t breathe and I could hardly see a thing as well. I was feeling claustrophobic so I didn’t last long inside that one. In the sauna, it smelled awful so … I wasn’t sure if it was really supposed to smell like burnt wood. Either way, I didn’t stay there long enough either. After an hour and a half in the jacuzziMagnetic Key and sauna and the steam bath, we went back to the lockers to wear our robes and proceeded to the women’s full body massage area.

At first, I thought that we were going to be wearing our robes for the massage, but no. We had to get naked as well. After more than an hour of walking around naked, you kind of lose any shyness or shame so it didn’t really matter anymore. Besides, the room was darkened so they couldn’t really see anything. And they did cover the parts not being worked on with towels. Wensha’s Full Body Massage meant what it says. It’s a full body massage from the top of your head to the tip of your toes, from your back to your front. Imagine the culture shock I got for today. I can only laugh about it right now, but looking back now, I feel a little embarrassed. Oh well.

Next stop was the dining area. I almost lost my ring in the locker and I only noticed it when I went to the dining area already. It was no designer jewelry, but I love my puzzle ring. Good thing I was still able to get it from my robe pocket. Anyway, in the dining area, there’s free eat-all-you-can hotpot buffet (but it’s not really free, since it’s included in the fee you pay for) and I kind of just ended up eating mostly the noodles. I like hotpots. The first time I ever experienced eating hotpot food was that party my Japanese students held for thanking me.

All in all, it was a really nice experience. But a day after that, my body ached. lol. Had to crack a lot of joints. I don’t really know if that’s how it should be, but I enjoyed it anyway. I even want to go back and try the other things they offer like the glass thingie with hot air.

Spa Noobz

What I just don’t like from Wensha was they didn’t give us a receipt. Sure it was an oversight on our part, but when we asked for a receipt about a day after, they didn’t want to give us one. Their reason? Their receipts have to be in chronological order so they can’t give us one. And since this was a company thing, we needed the receipt.

Any ideas on what we could do? Our team leader said we could get BIR (Bureau of Internal Revenue) or maybe DTI (Department of Trade and Industry). Anyone who’s got an idea for legal action regarding this?

P.S. Wordpress broke and is being stupid. I don’t have time to fix this. -_-

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24 May, 2008 (21:37) | Food, Travel, Work | By: Mi



The Idiots Are Taking Over

A pretty interesting video I stumbled upon (or rather forced on me by Yu). It reminds me of my own country. Sure, our president is a highly educated person. She has even undergone western education.

The Idiots are Taking Over NOFX

It’s no secret that I’m kind of Pro-Erap, but I don’t think Erap is an idiot. Stupid, but not an idiot. Anyway, enjoy the vedio. A highly educated person can also be an idiot. Or as how most Filipinos say it… an IJOT (ee-jot).

For in much wisdom is much grief: and he that increaseth knowledge increaseth sorrow.
–Ecclesiastes 1:18

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23 May, 2008 (13:32) | Government, Philippines, Videos | By: Mi



Anger Management

I haven’t written any anecdotes from work lately, huh. I’ve been a little busy in case you haven’t noticed. Lately, what’s happening is after the call, it’s over. I forget about it. And right now, I can’t think of anything except that call of my seatmate’s earlier.

It was really funny. Her voice was getting really high-pitched. I thought she was getting annoyed at us because we were chatting with each other and she might have been thinking we were too noisy. Until I heard this…

“Please look at the right side.”

“That’s at the left side.”

“It’s at the right side. The right side! Stop looking at the left side.”

“You should be seeing ~this this that that~ that one you’re looking at is at the left side. I need you to look at the right side.”

——-This went on for about 5 minutes—–

“Yes sir, I understand. I apologize for the inconvenience. Let me get a supervisor.”

——– I just laughed ——

Apparently, my friend was guiding the customer to sign in the home page, and the sign in link was at the right side. The customer kept looking at the wrong side. Our team leader scolded her for losing her cool and told her she could have tried a different approach, like asking the customer to look at the left side. That might have changed something.

This friend of mine is usually cool and composed… Calm in most calls. But in that call, she really seemed to want to club someone to death. I could’ve offered her some Callaway irons for that since I know the feeling.

One time, I spent almost two hours on a call because of a customer who had different definitions for “delete,” “erase,” and “remove.” “Deleting” was serious business because it will be “deleted” everywhere, and it would be irretrievable forever. If you just “erase” it, you can still get it back, or it’s just somewhere else. If you “remove” it, it will still be there, just that you can’t see it.

It was really frustrating.

The lesson? You have to align yourself with the customer’s language. If left (<-) for him is right (->), then go with them. If a forward slash (/) is a backslash (\) to them, then so be it. If a colon (:) is a semi-colon (;). The point is you’re talking the same language. It’s hard, but if you want to get things done, you have to do it that way instead of getting angry.

*sigh*

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23 May, 2008 (13:15) | Tech Support | By: Mi



Pimple Outbreak!

I’m worried about that. What with lack of sleep and everything. In fact, I kind of spent probably the second worst birthday I’ve ever had. I only slept for about an hour from the 17th to the 19th. But we won in the fashion show thingie that we were preparing for anyways. So it’s all good.

Yesterday, we went to Wensha Spa to relax. It was a great day and I’ll write up another post for that some other time.

I’m staying at my brother’s place at the moment so I haven’t been able to go online at all. Been baking and cooking and everything. Tonight, we’re going to have ribs! \o/

And this morning, I woke up to find out I had a huge pimple at the side of my face. It’s not very visible but still! I’m always afraid to have a pimple or acne outbreak. I know I can’t afford natural acne treatment … well, maybe I can. Spend a little for my face… but still!!!

I need to go back to my brother’s place now. I’ve been watching Coffee Prince. Lol. Iks said, “Is that stored on the laptop?” I said it was on DVD. “Then why aren’t you watching it on the DVD player instead of trying to make do with the sound?”

Stupid me. I could hardly hear the sound on the laptop, good thing there were subtitles. But it would really be better if you could hear it even if it’s in another language right? \

Aaaahh I was stupid. But in anycase… Just to let you know, I’ve been spending a lot. A LOT of my NuMiPC because I’ve been buying stuff for my 3-day bday party. But I’m happy! And getting fatter. OTL.

*sigh* see you guys around~

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21 May, 2008 (08:23) | Random | By: Mi



Building Credit Line

Lately, I’ve been thinking of getting a credit card. Lori is strongly opposed to it, but like Sara said, it really depends on the person, it’s not really that evil. Yu is strongly opposed to me getting one as well because he knows me a little too well.

Well… I do have my reasons. I kind of heard about this from Tom before. He explained that if you have CC and you pay your dues on time and stuff, you can slowly increase your credit limit. So that’s what I want to do. The point is simply just pay the dues on time, don’t let what happened to Orc happen to me wherein he got buried with debt because of CC.

Mama and I were discussing getting a loan as well. In three years, that will be possible. It’s a long time from now, but it wouldn’t hurt thinking about the future. I said before that I’m not the type of person who thinks into the future too much but it’s not bad thinking about it every once in a while. If I do get a loan, and I haven’t found any small business opportunity by then, I could just put it into a Time Deposit account and let it mature, and then get a loan again, and probably, the loan I can get will be higher. Rinse, Wash, Repeat. It might take a couple of years. This is just an idea.

It’s no big secret that I don’t have plans living in this hole forever. But if in case I won’t be able to go away, the least I could do is make my life as comfortable as possible. And in the mean time, I’ll try doing something.

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17 May, 2008 (12:05) | Life, Random, misan | By: Mi



It’s That Time in Your Life…

… when you do things that brings back memories.

These past few days, I said I was busy with work-related stuff. We’re actually creating a costume for our Team Leader. It feels like going back to high school and doing a school project. I went to Cavite a couple of days ago and I still lack sleep.

Today, at work, my TL (Team Leader, my immediate supervisor, my boss) asked me what I wanted for my birthday from Starbucks, and I said I wanted cake :D he got me the chocolate mousse thing I think. I don’t know what’s the name of it. I’ll drop by Starbucks and check it out one day. Then he also asked me what I wanted for getting a perfect score in my scorecard for last month. I said I wanted the usual, coffee jelly. :D

So Happy.

It’s that time in your life when you get pampered for doing a job well done. It kind of makes me want to do better. (LoL, just kind of). I never thought there would be a point in my life when I’d be so glad to have a Singko (Cinco, 5). I had a ton of those in college and I was never one bit happy.

It’s that time in your life when you want to just buy yourself something nice, or do something different for your birthday. I’m not going to send out party invitations or anything since I plan to celebrate it on the 19th which is a Monday and my friends will be at work. So I’ll just be playing around at my brother’s place and mess with their oven. Gonna make something nice and different. I already bought a box of lemon cheesecake to experiment on. :3 Also got a box of brownie mix and butterscotch mix.

What nice baked main meal would be good? Yu suggested quiche. Now that I write this, maybe it would be nice. I’ll get recipe from Yu later.

It’s that time in your life when you feel tired. But somewhat satisfied. I did mention that I was doing a “school project.” I was making the costume’s tail and it required a lot of planning, stitching, and sniffing contact cement and getting temporarily high.

Anyways, sleep time.

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16 May, 2008 (12:42) | Food, Life, Work | By: Mi



Globe Telecom Sucks

Been busy with work and some other stuff lately.

The past three days, I’ve been spending some of my precious rest times dealing with customer support from Globe telecom and BPI. I’m glad to say that BPI’s customer service wasn’t that bad. It was just a real pain in the behind to get someone on their hotline number, but there’s an option there wherein you can leave your name and number and they’ll get back to you as soon as they can. And they did. And it was a wonderful experience.

Globe telecom customer support on the other hand had always had terrible customer service and it hadn’t changed from 3 years ago. Three years ago I called for help because of my GPRS settings. That was resolved immediately except that I was put on hold for 12 minutes after being told that I’d be put on hold for 8 minutes (Yes, she asked if it was alright to put me on hold for 8 minutes).

Lately, I’ve been having problems with BPI Mobile Banking ever since I had my SIM card upgraded so that my phone will work properly.

The first time I called, I was told that the problem was with BPI and that I should call them. I couldn’t reach anyone so I just went to the bank itself because it’s just almost right across my place. I still had to call the hotline, and that was when I left my number instead.

At the bank, I was getting more and more aggravated, so I called Globe’s customer service again and then I was told that my phone had a problem. I mean, what the F. First it was the bank, and then it was my phone. They said because there’s no problem with the area and that I should be getting a good signal. I told them as well that there were times that I try accessing the mobile banking menu my whole journey from Makati to Quezon City, so it SHOULD be my phone, they said.

Then I told her that it was working before I had my SIM card upgraded, so how could it be my phone. I also had to TELL the stupid rep THREE FREAKIN TIMES that I upgraded from 64k to 128k. I mean, could you upgrade from 64k to 64k? I got pissed and asked her if Tagalog was so hard to understand that I had to repeat it again and again. She already had an aggravated customer and she had to aggravate me even more.

Sure, I’m just one of millions of subscribers. Sure, I’m just using prepaid. I’m not one of Globe’s precious postpaid customers. And now I am SO GLAD that I didn’t go for postpaid like I planned to 2 months ago.

Anyway, after my call with BPI, we came with a much more solid conclusion, and the problem IS with the SIM card, like I’ve been telling the 2nd person from Globe. So I’m going to Globe’s business center in a bit and complain and have them fix this. I know it’s not my phone because I’ve tried it on Mama’s phone which is a Sony Ericsson and I also tried it on Papa’s which isn’t a 3G phone.

The aggravation and sleeplessness I got from Globe Telecom probably lost me 10 lbs, faster than using instant weight reducing medicine like Orovo detox wherein you can lose as much as 7 pounds in 7 days. I mean, I do want to lose weight, but not from being eternally angry.

*sigh*

I guess I could use the exercise.

And yes, if you’re thinking that I’m saying all these because I also work in the customer service business and that I should know better, then it IS because I know better. The BPI rep did all that she can to help me without putting the blame on other things like what Globe Telecom did. In fact, she was kind of making BPI own the problem by apologizing for not having a system to inform the customers of the new BPI Mobile banking menu thing.

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14 May, 2008 (13:34) | Philippines | By: Mi



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