da tomāto

Pldt dsl connection was terrible yesterday - from non-existent in the late afternoon to intermittent until I gave up and headed to bed. Yesterday - After 2 hours of waiting for it to go back to normal, finally decided to call the pldt 171 hot-line at 8:00 pm. Dialed once, entered data that the recorded voice asked, and waited over 30 minutes until a real person answered. CS Rep said that there was no advisory about problems in our area but there were some customer reports that came in that they had no working connections at all. Figured if I called earlier, I'd be one of them. But at that moment, we had sporadic but still useless bursts of connection. The CS Rep called it "intermittent" and that it would go on his report that the tech team will work on. Quite pleasant conversation, actually. The rep didn't insist on troubleshooting which I've already done before calling, of course. Asking once was enough, glad he knew that. Besides, it was something totally

Was doing a bit of offline work earlier (ref: pencil and paper) and with how the lighting is in here, all I thought about was how I wanted to be ambidextrous. I would've plugged in my lamp to brighten the space more but my phone was plugged in first. Charging it was a priority before relieving myself of all the squinting. I've come to the conclusion that my cellphone is not meeting my needs well and its battery life is not keeping up. Blasting firecrackers (triangle super lolos , I think) can be heard around here the past few days. It was during early evenings at first and it was faint so we figure it was far from here. But earlier, at dawn, it came again and they were firing up those things close by. Car alarms were going off 'cause of 'em. So annoying.

We celebrated our town's fiesta last weekend and you will see that they put out more than a couple of dishes for the occasion. It goes without saying that I had leftovers for brunches since then. My day-of fiesta brunch - morcon and beef mechado This morcon was even better the day after because when we heat it up, it stews in its sauce. Shame I did not have any sauce on this pictured-day-of and it was slightly dry without it too. Leftover brunches - rellenong bangus and pork afritada Stuffed bangus was very tasty. The afritada was my fave on this plate.   More leftover brunch - pata tim and embutido Pata tim (Chinese-style, I think) meat was very tender. Had ketchup with the embutido, of course. That reminds me, I have to buy UFC banana ketchup. Me don't likey Hunt's tomato ketchup, UFC's has a kick at spicyness kasi na I like. We had more dishes too - lumpiang shanghai, fried chicken, valenciana, shrimps... These are just what I took pictures of since (like

Would've preferred to write "I've been under the weather..." but that wouldn't be entirely true. I was not feeling well last Friday night and Saturday, and from Sunday to today (Tuesday), I've been feeling progressively better. I don't normally complain but when you can't sleep because of the discomfort, well, yes, I complained. I was able to sleep well again Sunday night so now, I feel silly for complaining. What's tricky is it's not that bad. It's a gut thing. Hope it goes away really soon. Been using "manzanilla" on my belly and it smells good... I think it's helping, I like to think it is. No fever or vomiting ever happened. These past couple of days, how do I say it... there's just something there so it's not totally gone. I'm not sure what caused this. I'm pinning it on peanut butter sandwiches I ate Friday. OK. Moving away from my bodily aches... Yes, it rained. The much-newsed (making words up n

When there's no time to cook (except for rice - there must always be rice), open a can of Ligo sardines and all will be well in the (my) world. I used to live off canned Ligo sardines (red can for hot and spicy, green for not) and canned Purefoods corned beef when I lived close to the uni I attended over a decade ago. It helped that I mostly ate in my room, alone, once every few days a week back then. With nothing but a rice cooker and a toaster oven, I was set. A few years ago, I discovered that it was better to saute Ligo sardines with a quartered ripe tomato because it mellows it out - if you've got time to cook, that is. No onions for me, please - that is what it's typically sauted with - I dislike onions. On a warm skillet, dump in the sardines and sliced tomato. I like to break up the fish and keep sauteing until the tomato slices soften. Since everything's already cooked to begin with (just two ingredients lang ), it takes less than five minutes to finish ove

All canned meats. Lahat galing de-lata. Hmmm... One of either with eggs would've been fine. I like my brekky processed meats but this is too much of one thing. Mosquitoes abound. Daming lamok . [annoyed]

Half a california maki roll twister and half a brownie - all takeaway from KFC - were tonight's early dinner. I was generously shared those halves, v. good. Wish KFC delivers to our house. They don't - at least that's what I know. My fave KFC food (to date) is their fries. Yum. But I don't care for their instant-from-powder mashed potatoes. Used to, but not anymore. What else?

Sweltering nighttime temps these days are... severe. Calling it severe may be too much. But it is so uncomfortable. It's almost 2 a.m. now and I'm dabbing beads of sweat off my forehead - that's how bad it is. Let me write this down real-time ... I feel a cool draft now. It's strange since I was having sweat beads on my forehead only moments ago. But knowing how nighttime temps have been lately, I can confidently say that in a few minutes from now, that wave of damp heat will return. At this point, I can choose to go to bed and savor this coolness around me or I can choose to continue writing, just to prove my point - well, prove it to myself since I'm the only one here. I know it's coming... waiting for it... Okay, it's taking a little longer than expected. Okay, here's a good prediction -- rain. Yes, it could rain tonight. Yes, it's still cool. But at this point, I'd welcome to be proven wrong. Oh lovely, refreshing, cool showers...  come, co

Down to the last 20 pages of "The Diary of a Young Girl" (Anne Frank), excluding the afterword. Took over two years to do it - pathetic effort, I know. The cover's corners are wrinkled now which is a little sad since it arrived in such good shape despite the fact that it was a used book when I bought it years ago. Should wrap it with plastic cover soon. Started on "The Picture of Dorian Gray" (Project Gutenberg's, of course). I'm 15 pages in and glad to say it interests me. Now, if I had this book on hand, I think I would not be able to put it down with easy detachment. Rather, it would take much conscientious effort to do so (or the need to go to the bathroom, or to eat, or to work...). That's me, saying that, just from reading the first 15 pages.

Yesterday's brunch of left-over giniling and pork bbq - adding a fried egg made the previous night's meats part of a proper brunch. Nice. Would've been very good if there was garlic fried rice. But no, the bigas we're using now makes sticky rice. Can't make kalo-kalo with it. Tonight's temp is lovely. Sadly, I feel the beginnings of a headache coming. Face and eyes are warm. Feeling blunt pressure on top of skull. But it's nothing... I think it's going away.