July 22

My reasons why I use a credit card

Hailing from a rural area, my family never had a credit card. In fact hearing all the horror stories with its abuse, our view of its use borders in calling it as the spawn of the devil. After I graduated in college and started working I pretty much stuck with the “cash only” principle. That principle could not go wrong as it forces one to live by one’s own means, dispensing only cash that is available to you. That in itself is a fallacy that I will touch on later.

The company I worked for issued me an American Express gold card when I was assigned to Finland. The card remained largely unused as charging something on a plastic is a very alien principle to me. I even made it a sport heckling those call center agents who hawked pre-approved cards. However a couple of years ago I gave in and got my own credit card (with an extension to my wife who also dislikes using credit cards because of her own personal reasons).

What happened? My reasons were actually simple when you think about it:

  • The argument of keeping within the “cash only” transactions will result to living within your means is definitely not true. It can help if you don’t have the necessary willpower to known when you can and cannot afford an item but its not enough. Even without credit cards one can easily fall into deep debts. I have seen that happen. Any vice and addiction can turn around one’s fortune as quick as a stock market crash.
  • Living within your means can extend to credit card use, with the bonus of having the convenience of plastic. I don’t charge anything to my card that I cannot pay the next day. The next day, not the next payday. This is where willpower comes into play.
  • Credit card allows me to pay the exact amount. Unlike in the US where every penny counts, the Philippine centavo has fallen away into obscurity. How many people today can say they still have seen what a centavo looks like (yes the one with Lapu-lapu). Groceries and department stores are rampant in specifying amounts to the lowly centavo but does not have any change to spare that they round off the amount to the nearest 25 centavos. My credit card is from my bank so I can pay the exact amount down to the centavo when I settle my bills online. Every centavo counts, right?

    • Every-centavos-count

  • Ease of accounting. My online statement allows me to keep track of my expenditures. I use Budget Pulse to keep track of my liquid finances and even if I miss entering my expenses daily I can always fall back on the bank statements to keep my accounting sane.
  • Freebies. My credit card has some nifty freebies every 3 months; may it be free pizza, frozen delights, pulvoron or fast food goodies. The amounts needed to avail these have gone up but if I total all the freebies my wife and I have availed then they would have already paid for the yearly membership fee of our credit card. Which brings us to…
  • Almost free membership. Well I still need to pay Php1500 per year but for the last 2 of the 3 years I have been using the points earned by my credit card to pay for that yearly membership fee. This year the rep waived the membership fee and reversed the charge on my credit card because of my good standing, and also because I called. 🙂

I only maintain 2 credit cards: the one from the company which I dont use and the one I have now. Overall its a good deal as long I keep on minding how I use our credit cards.

ciao!

Category: Garbage | LEAVE A COMMENT
July 1

She loves me, she loves me not

Remember that foolish game played by female teens wherein they pluck the petals of roses while alternating between “He loves me” and “He loves me not”? I found a healthy alternative when we had to trim the Malunggay (moringa) sapling in our driveway and found myself delegated to “pluck the leaves” duty. 🙂

Oh she definitely loves me

I gave up after the fifth or sixth branch. We already had enough for the Monggo guisado as well as have some extra for the other dishes that dont usually get the Malunggay treatment.

And of course she loves me. 😉

Category: Top of my head | LEAVE A COMMENT
June 25

Sorry Ybi

It breaks my heart but you we will have to wait a little bit longer. 🙁

Clamoring for attention

Leo is ecstatic. He gets to be my b*tch slave for a while longer.

chugging-along

I wish I can go home early tomorrow and setup Ybi. 🙂

NOTE: Aybi (I-vy) is short for Aybarra. All of my machines are male. My wife already has to contend being second fiddle to my machines, giving them female names would just be adding salt to the wound. 😉

Category: Top of my head | LEAVE A COMMENT
June 7

Time passes by in technology

I spent 5 minutes explaining a scripting issue with a junior member of my team when he asked what the CR and LF characters in the comments section was.

I briefly explained that it stands for Carriage Return and Line Feed but I saw the still puzzled look on his face,  the type that was trying to digest something very unfamiliar.  I decided to explain further, with matching actions, that those were based in the activities in the typewriter that you need to go to the starting of the line (carriage return)  and pushing a lever to add a new line (line feed).

I looked at my young grasshopper and saw the puzzled look became a perplexed one.  It was then that I realized the mistake that I made so I asked the next probable question which is “have you had the chance to use a manual typewriter before? ” The answer was a quick No.

I had to laugh since he is basically a fresh grad and in his early twenties. I am on my early thirties and am amazed at what a decade of difference would make in terms of technology.
Typewriter
I wonder how soon it would be before the future graduates are unable to grasp the concepts used as basis for ubiquitous things in technology such as using one or two characters to go to the next line on the document.  🙂

Category: Top of my head | LEAVE A COMMENT
May 14

One more gadget-want in the bag

Testing the MHL adapter that Nanang Lucille sent over.

When upright, the display only uses the center with large black spaces on both sides.

Rotate it sideways and the magic happens…

Unfortunately the device will only be detected if power is supplied via the micro-usb input port. Not bad for a $10 MHL device. The device works beautifully for the purpose why I wanted it in the first place: to watch video clips that I have already cached in my phone memory if the TV is available. 🙂

Thanks Nanang. 🙂

Clarification: the unit is the only one bundled for that price. The HDMI switch and cables are from CDRKing. The power adapter is the one that came with the SGS2 unit.

Category: Top of my head | LEAVE A COMMENT
April 21

Down boy, down

Let me get the caveat out of the way: I was raised as a Roman Catholic by my pious paternal grandmother. I spent 13 years in Catholic schools and university. I progressed from being a Roman Catholic to non-practising, and now agnostic. It is possible that you visited my ranting space through a link I may have inadmittedly provided. You may not like what you read below so better close your browser tab now.

I love Godwin’s Law which, even though it is named that way, does not have any connection to religion. It is a de facto law invoked in cyber discussions wherein the first person who uses a Nazi comparison or reference loses the discussion immediately regardless of how brilliant their points are.

I wish there would be something similar for people who just love to bring their religion into the middle of everything. Especially those who think that referencing their omnipotent lord through all capitalized letters is a testament of their faith. I would, in my own twisted and probably ill-thought way, disagree for the following reasons:

  • Capitalization as instructed by my grammar teachers should only be used on the first letter if you want to use that word as a proper noun.
  • All-caps in textual communication denotes shouting.
  • Or, putting everything in caps can denote an initialism or acronym. An example can be Goods of Desire, or Security Administrator Tool for Analyzing Networks

Some might argue that they see nothing wrong if they are proud to shout and profess their faith in regular discussions. I would like to challenge you to think it over again. Do you shout that same word every time during real-life discussions? If you do, then I hope we don’t have any opportunities to communicate. Ever.

Rabid

Everybody is to free and have the right to believe in what they believe in. My point was not to be lazy and try to work out that everything is about religion or can be explained automatically by using a religious reference. Not everybody have the same belief, and cramming that at our throats every discussion doesn’t help your cause. Whenever I see that during discussions I actually feel less inclined to participate further. It feels to me that I am conversing with a Dothraki native who thinks spouting “It is Known” while nodding their heads actually gives credibility to what they said.

Category: Rubbish | LEAVE A COMMENT
April 21

Too much work

Last night I dreamt that i had to join a call of another team but the speakerphone won’t get out of mute. I moved to another phone but the volume was too low. Several phones had similar problems that I just stood up, looked for a junior member of my team and bellowed “Log a ticket to replace all defective phones in the project area. ASAP!!! ”

I need a break. My bossy side is frequently rearing its ugly head again.

Category: Top of my head | LEAVE A COMMENT
March 13

14 years

A few more minutes and the day that marks the 14th year of being with my wife is about to pass.

A steak dinner in Bistecca (courtesy of a gift certificate), dessert of swapped Magnum ice cream sticks being eaten while the car is parked in an underground mall parking, and a lot of “I can’t remember now” conversations to while the drive home. That is how we chose to celebrate it this year.

For my wife, who is lucky to have me and I to have her, I dedicate the chorus of this Guns ‘n Roses classic:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hiBjCKKEe_E

14 years of silence
It’s been
14 years of pain
It’s been
14 years that are gone forever
And I’ll never have again

*ba-dum-ching*

[NOTE: Yes my wife already heard me quote that chorus to her a few weeks back. 🙂 ]

ciao!

Category: Top of my head | LEAVE A COMMENT
March 11

Almost fresh salsa

I really like the Tostitos salsa but I can’t really justify paying that much for something that could be whipped up at a fraction of the price. Ok, not exactly the way it taste but hopefully something that could pass as salsa. Here is my take on the Tosterin Salsa. 🙂

Ingredients

  • Plump red tomatoes, about 1/4 kilos, diced
  • 1 small tomato paste – the brand I used came in 100 grams sachet
  • a sprig of cilantro, kinchay or whatever fresh herb you have access to. chopped finely.
  • 1 small onion,chopped finely
  • 3 cloves of garlic, chopped finely
  • 1 piece siling labuyo chopped finely
  • 1 piece of green chillies – the kind used for sinigang, chopped finely
  • 2-3 tbsp of vinegar
  • salt and pepper

Procedure

  1. Mix all ingredients in a saucepan.
  2. Heat the mixture to wilt some of the ingredients. I let it simmer for about 3 minutes.
  3. Transfer to a serving bowl or jar for storage.

Mild and sour salsa

I dont really measure when I cook as it goes against my Pacham(ba) cooking style. The different chillies are intended to give different kinds of heat. Jalapeno pepper would be nice but not something that I would have access to. The amount would vary on your taste and I only used half of the siling labuyo since it might come off as too spicy for my wife. I also used apple cider vinegar as I have that handy and I am always looking for reasons to use it. 🙂

Now off to buy some inexpensive corn or potato chips to complement the “affordable” salsa that we have in the pantry. The salsa ingredients costs about 50 pesos, which is not bad considering the grocery bought salsa fetches for 3 to 5 times that amount.

Category: Top of my head | LEAVE A COMMENT