In reference to my previous post, I mentioned that I will be making another entry specific to our experience with Prime Care Camera Repair. Last Saturday, we were hoping against hope that we could resurrect our faithful Canon S3 IS. After it was submerged in flood water (thanks to Ondoy!) for 2 days, I had the camera brought in Quiapo. If you walk Hidalgo street coming from the church, to your left, you will see a huge sign that says Canon distributor. Sorry I really forgot the name of the said store. Anyway, they checked it and said they will remove the rust and fixt the poor thing. And so after more than a month (this happened last year), I went back to get the cam. I was charged 3,500 for the repair and was given a receipt stating I have a 3 months guarantee. I tested it at the store, had a few shots and then went off. Read more…

I first saw AyosDito.Ph when I read a post from a blogger friend who was raving about the said site. Naturally, I became curious, so checked it out. It was much later on that I began to appreciate the said site, long after I got suspended from eBay (from the sheer mistake of merging my old eBay ID to that of the new – I made another one because I got married and wanted to change everything.).  Anyway, the first time I was able to really utilize the site was when I had to search for furnished apartment for rent in Manila for my aunt who was then vacationing from the US. The site is very user friendly, organized and easy on the eyes. Add to that the fact that the images are loading in my office computer.

The transaction was smooth and the person who placed the ad is very accommodating. I could attribute that to chance or luck, but the rave reviews that I got to read from forums is a good benchmark to say that the site has a good following and that most sellers are decent and easy to negotiate. Although it will of course be better if they can come up with the rating system for buyers and sellers, like another site. Read more…

image credits herestolife.wordpress.com

My mom earned a new nick name – Lola Techie. Why? Yesterday, we downloaded a couple of movie torrentz, along with that I loaded a couple of websites with videos that we wanted to watch, some videotaped webinars.  Before leaving for work, my mom told me to leave the laptop open because she wanted to access her Facebook account. She said she has a couple of friends she wants to poke. Whew! Imagine that! hehe And so we obliged and left the laptop on. My mom is turning into a lola techie.

When we got home, hubby said he saw a couple of other websites. Seems like my mom is actually surfing the net. One website that she opened was www.arthritispainrelief.net, looks like you really can tell a persons age by the literature that they are reading. Amazing how people are adapting to technology. Before, my mom could hardly find her way through navigating a mobile phone, now she sees a new model of mobile phone, she speculates whether it has bluetooth, fm radio and how many megapixels the camera phone has. Lola techie ng lola techie nga! hehe

That’s how our car looks like before it got drowned in flood waters of Typhoon Ketsana. After the said incident we spent too much time and money trying to fix the car. And since we were short on cash and some other things had to be prioritized, after we had it repainted to candy tone red, it was sitting in the garage for a year. So this time around we decided to finally have it fixed. Currently, the mechanic was able to work on the compressor, the electrical, the transmission. Next set of things to be worked on would be the shifting rod. We decided to finally get her a new look as well, so we’re changing up the headlights. Since HID kits are a lot more affordable these days, it’ll be much better to get that. And since I’m such a cheapskate, my husband had to sell me the idea before I agreed to allocating budget for the said item.

Here are some features that I liked about HID headlights:

• Concentrated direct beam of light – the light pattern is less scattered and the reach is much farther, and yes, that’s why it’s brighter. And since we’re both working in the BPO industry which translates to night shift working hours, it’s so much the better for us for safety reasons.
• Better over all look of the car – angel eyes projector headlights just makes our car look more edgy! Alright, when I learned of the discounted price and how our car would look like after the transformation, I was already sold. But the safety features sure did earn it even more points for me.

Like the old adage goes: Change is constant! As such, we know for certain the technology will constantly improve. That is why it is not wise to spend too much on gadgets like mobile phones, mp3 players, tv sets etc. We all know that in a matter of one or two years, something much better will come along and the resale value of the items we bought isn’t going to be much.

Since we need most of these things in our day to day living – computer programs for our office work, mobile phones for communication – we need to also adapt to these changes. You can pretty much tell if you’re starting to get old, if you’re starting to become resistant to change. I for one, have been pretty unmindful of the many features that my mobile phone has. But I have to remind myself that I need to learn these things to maximize the use of my gadgets.

Surprisingly, there are older folks who, despite having a hard time learning the ropes on how to use the modern day gadgets that we have now, are eager to learn anyways. One of my friends mom, who already has 3 grandchildren loves surfing the net, with www.best-wrinklecream.com as her favorite site. I remember how challenging it was to teach my folks to use the computer. It is a complete test of patience! But I have to remind myself that one day, I’ll be in their place and I certainly don’t want my son to be impatient when it comes to teaching me how to use new technology. The most important thing to keep in mind is to be open-minded about the new change, not just in technology but as well as the changes we encounter in life in general.

Last November, I told you we finally decided to get a new TV set. The transaction at Robinson’s Galleria Appliance store went smoothly, and we’re actually happy with their staff who assisted us. A few days later, we even got a call from them to ask if we are hapy with the item and if everything is okay. Well, anyway, going back to the TV, well, we’re mostly happy with  this purchase. The picture quality is great, we just have to wait for Sky Cable to upgrade the signal (which I think will take time considering that our area is still serviced with analog signals and we have yet to get a digibox….hmmm, thinking of switching to Cignal), although for our downloaded videos, we don’t have any complains. Just have to also purchase a blu-ray player (hope they become more affordable in time).

The only downside we could think of, is the audio. Hubby already reconfigured the settings but its still low and when you turn up the volume, the sound quality becomes “basag”. So what we did, is just to work around it and bought home speakers instead. Well, we got the TV for a song, so we’re not complaining. Just hoping the manufacturers could take that into account next time.

Updating this post as of Dec 25, 2011.

I wanted to update this post 6 months ago. We do not have any complains about the TV, the only down side is the remote control. The signs especially for playing a movie were all erased. It started fading as soon as 3 months from purchase. Now, you kinda have to press all the buttons to find out where is rewind, forward, pause and pretty much all the controls. Other than that all’s fine.

It’s finally going to be Christmas next week and people are trooping to the malls and bazaars to cross out items in their holiday shopping list.

image taken from leeloveshottrends.com

And speaking of shopping list, my husband has one more item he wanted to cross out on his list. He wants home theater speakers to go with our new LED TV. With how every mall is filled with busy shoppers all the time, it looks like he’ll get to cross that one out on his list long after Christmas, knowing how allergic he is when it comes to going to public places swarming with people during the holidays.

As for me, I’ll be happy if my Santa drops a new IPOD Nano on my lap. 

If you guessed that we finally bought a TV, you’re absolutely right. The husband was giving me the puppy eyes while looking at our old tv set, when his ps3 games are not playing in colored. So about 2 weeks ago, prior to going to church we decided to look around and check out the deals of electronic stores. Lo and behold! We found one that is absolutely a good deal. Since we’ll be using it inside our bedroom, we decided to go for something not more than 30inches. We bought a Ganzklar 24inches LED TV, the husband is absolutely ecstatic! Since the price is really good for a LED TV, no freebies were offered despite that we were paying for it cash. But it was a sweet deal really, it comes with 2 usb drives and is capable of full HD, something I cannot describe. I’ll ask the husband to blog about it in detail though. Everything is good, the only thing we don’t like is the sounds, good thing we can always opt to get an Altec Lansing pair of speakers to go with it. Oh and if you have reservations about the brand, like we were initially, well don’t worry because it’s made in Germany.

I remember a friend of mine bought a foosball table for almost PhP13,000, which is roughly $250 – $300, depending on the exchange rate. I wanted the same thing at home, since it’s a good gaming piece, especially when you are entertaining a bunch of people. I came across a really nice deal at buy.com, they are currently offering foosball tables for only $95.99, which is not even PhP5,000. If only they could also offer free shipping here in the Philippines, that would indeed be a great buy.

image taken from ohgizmo.com

Lately I’ve been thinking of buying a house, but the main predicament that we have, aside from of course the money for the down payment, is the location. We already wanted to move after the experienced the flooding incident due to typhoon Ketsana, locally named Ondoy. On the other hand, we feel that with our budget, we can only move down south or way up East or north. Something that we are unable to consider considering our places of work.

I wish we have local RV manufacturers or at least importers. It would have been more easier for us to own an RV. But then again even if there are importers here, that would be expensive. Also I’m thinking it’ll really be a headache to look for a mechanic that specializes in rv repairs, considering how rare it would be.

Well, perhaps someday I could live out that dream of getting live in an RV for a few days.