iHoard

I usually hoard up toiletries in frenzy and large volume when I am about to sail on a foreign territory. I will just be in Cebu by the next month for the town fiesta and my brother's birthday consecutively, but I feel like uncontrollably amassing retail inventories of these items like it's the end of the world.

For one, I don't want to end-up in a godforsaken place without the needed brands to keep my hygiene fresh and dainty. While I can find other alternatives, but have you noticed that there are brands, local or international, Pinoy or Paris that would stick to your body glands like soul mates? Yes, we have our own brands and we stick to it to keep ourselves neat and nice.

Recently I had bottles of D&G Light Blue and Ralph Lauren Polo Collection as my arsenals of redolence. To specifically count, I had one set of Ralph Lauren Polo Sport Collection, one set of Dolce&Gabbana eu de toilette/moisturizer/body wash set, one Dolce&Gabbana Light Blue eu de toilette single bottle, and one Dolce&Gabbana Light Blue eu de toilette travel bottle. Setting is at the Maki Haus Authentic Fukien Cuisine, Timog cor Sct. Tobias, hence the presence of the giant Siomai in the pic.

Someone hinted that I am so OA to get them in profuse numbers. Well, I'd rather be not held at the mercy of having them depleted in my dominion.

That is so far a fuss from a man of fragrance, one who always want to smell good, even at his sleep.

After toiletries(deodorant, toothpaste/brush, comb, hair styling stuff, facial scrub, moisturizer, eu de parfum/eu de toilette, body wash, shampoo), what other stuff will I put in my item checklist:

Cellphones? Laptop? Charger? Clothes? Credit Cards? Passport/Visa? Identification Cards? Travel tickets? Map? GPS devices?

The list goes on.

Swiss-made chrono coolness

The cliche goes that men's bragging right is measured by the esoteric set-up of his car, his position in the company is gauged by the prestige of his pen, and his financial stature is appraised by the worth of his wrist watch.

Watch is the only basic staple of jewelry worn by men. And while I am not into the brimming pride of flashing my assets and liabilities, I for one, also love watches, as women into diamonds.

Lately, I am in a frantic search to find an everyday watch. While there are numerous brands out there that I so much heart, like Baume&Mercier, Breitling, Tissot, etc, they are by far only best worn during special occasions, black tie affair mostly.

So I went into watch shops yesterday, from Chronos to Washington to other exotic, hard to find, seldom-found jewelry shops that occasionally offer gorgeous time pieces that don't actually put you upscale in your day to day grind. Although, they are still an inviting glitter that magnetizes crooks and thugs in the streets, they are relatively practical than wearing Rolex or Patek Philippe.

After leaving from my unofficial office, Blenz Canadian Coffee, I passed by a boutique that sells high-end watches like Hamilton, Tudor, Tag, and Tissot. The bout was Swiss legacy vs Japanese movement. I grabbed the Swiss-made chrono watch even if the price is ridiculously higher than the Japanese technology, because of the design factor and.. well, brand. How else can I emphasize that this is Swiss-made. All my watches are dress/trend watches like Guess, Fossil, and Kenneth Cole, and this is my first Swiss-watch to boot. (seen in the pic side by side with my MacBookPro)

And once again, as the cliche goes, the rest is history.

Switch

The day that I started using Mac through Pinnacle Systems Non-Linear Editing Solutions was the day that I am officially catapulted into the the Mac universe. That was around 1999-2000. Yet I was never fully a convert as my mobile devices were all operated through Windows platform. My mobile devices being my laptop and my smartphone are the arsenals of my mobility. These are the virtual concierge that serves me well on its purpose of instantaneously providing me data whenever our retail branches in Avid asked for prices, haggled discounts, and inquire stock availability.

Now, after remunerating of getting a MacBook Pro and sacrificing a couple of lunches because of its high acquisition cost, I am finally setting up mine according to my configuration, business needs and a myriad of personal luxuries.

I am finally what the folks at the Mac cult says a 'convert', or less expletive, a SWITCHER.

Loving every moments of my new road warrior ancillary, I'm found in some corners of Cookbook Kitchen Restaurant fiddling the graphical interface and a whole gamut of fun-filled oohhh's and aaahhh's, while relishing an even tastier Parmesan Crusted Baked White Fish as the restaurant's house specialty. Call it a ceremonial unveiling.

Almost completed except for the Sun Broadband USB Modem which successfully installed but not connecting to its 3G. A friend of mine hinted that I have to install mobilepartner.mpkg from the modem drive but I couldn't see to work it out. To the point of hopelessness, I just postulated that maybe it is because Mac OS is running under 64bit architecture while the modem app is just 32bit.

Luckily though, after convincing myself to make a final ditch, my modem works and yes, it does seem to connect. I will do another round of connectivity test later.

A rambling from a Mac switcher in me….

So what makes a Starbucks My Starbucks

Haven't I told you that I practically spent half of my business matters at coffee shops, either Blenz Canadian Coffee, Krispy Kreme, Seattle's Best, Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf, Segafredo, Figaro, or Starbucks? Some of them I have hailed as my unofficial office.

Since Starbucks has earned the laurels of being a Filipino favorite, remarkably becoming a household name, I would center this article into Starbucks alone. And since this article is a scope-out of the best hang out, what coffee shop else raises the ante by having the most number of branches than Starbucks.

I have been to almost all Starbucks branches, but in particular, I myself have my own Starbucks fence, analogous to my mobility caprices. So what makes a Starbucks My Starbucks, as I fondly call it. Metrics would be wifi presence, density of the crowd(lesser crowd the better), ambiance, and transport accessibility.  

1) Starbucks Silver City - cozy, facilities are relatively new, at the heart of business center
2) Starbucks Tagaytay - coziest and invigorating windy breeze, but I can't place this into my number one spot because its distance rendered having any USB modem useless, so you'd be most likely be a man-in-an-island.
3) Starbucks Corinthian Hills - one of the most relaxing ambiance because of its thin in-store traffic. Nestled at the Corinthian landscape where the society's bigwigs are residing, it seemed like an exclusive place to go. So if you don't bring a car, chances are you'd turn out languishing while hoping for a cab to pass by
4) Starbucks Tomas Morato - probably the only Starbucks with a library-fashioned table but its thick crowd only dissuade you of the needed private contemplating space
5) Strabucks 6750 - one of the first Starbucks bustling at the center of Makati's commercial district but occasionally gets crowded during week-days

It is neither because I love the coffee variant of Starbucks(I love the Segafredo instead) nor have they had wifi for me to freely tap at my heart's content, but because of their numerous outlets that I can practically go to any places, saunter along, sip a Latte and unfurl my lappie.

Mobile Lures

This is the season when I am so bent in having a MacBook Pro 2.4Ghz and an HTC Legend Android 2.1 phone. I am teetering a buying frenzy to have them that every time I pass by a Mac shop or an HTC Concept Store, I am tempted to swipe them off my credit card.

As to the question of why the two, I should say I am the rabid kind when it comes to technology optimization and adaptation, and once that is satiated, it leaves me with death-infusing boredom. Yes, I get bored with iPhone interface that I want an HTC Sense UI. And the HTC Legend's gorgeous unibody compliments well with Macbook's Aluminum unibody too, as if they are both tailored-fit with one another.

What's holding me back individually are: MacBook Pro: even the 13inch is way too heavy for my dear shoulder. HTC Legend: it is cut short in terms of size and processing power.

What's holding me both is that they might be a budget overkill. I need a laptop for my writing endeavor only, and a mobile phone for my day to day contact need. Those are basic needs any basic device can function and provide. Even if I can get a significant discount of $100 and a free 8GB iPod Touch for the purchase of a Macbook Pro, shelling out a $1,220(inclusive of iWork and tax) for a notebook I just use for basic research and casual browsing regimen just doesn't cut it. And not only that, add up a Php32k for the HTC Legend boarded a whopping Php87k-90k of hard-earned money's worth.

So what now, to buy or not to buy.

Legendary Insatiables

Fresh from traversing the metropolitan heart of the Land of the Rising Sun, some good ol' friends called me and invited me to a yet another oriental landscape, this time in our very own backyard, nestled in the compound of PICC's Boom na Boom. The name of the place is Legend Hong Kong Seafood Restaurant.

True to their word, Legend even brims a pride of having a Hong Kong-find culinary master.

Unlike any restaurants that we went into where we only ordered a nubbin just to taste their house specialty, this time, we ordered almost everything on the menu, almost every gourmet and flagship recipe. Served one after the other, it turned out to be a night of overflowing satisfaction. A gastronomic challenge to us all was how to stuff a relentless luxuriation of recipe one after the other into our already and almost-maxed out stomach.

Based on what I can recall and my limited culinary jargons, we devoured Hot & Sour Soup Sze Chuan Style, Steamed Lobster with Garlic, Steamed Lapu-Lapu Fillet w/ Bean Curd Taosi Sauce, Steamed Crab with Chinese wine & Eggwhite, plus a lot more our stomach hopes to stuff and tongues to taste. There was even a Roasted Pigeon and a Sea Cucumber that I forgot what the name is, but they taste so delectably good. All that complimented by a bottle of widely recognized Sauvignon wine.

With predominantly wenge-colored furnitures, the ambiance feels like a good Cantonese Hongkong-style Chinese food haven of sort.

And since the place is authentically Chinese, what more could you expect than our Chinese folks in a deluge number that you would think you're in a Mano Po set.

My friend feels otherwise, he feels like blackanese Chris Tucker damned in the suburbs of China in Rush Hour movie.