Burger Obsession

My sister and I were in Greenhills this afternoon and we decided to eat in Tropical Hut Hamburger (the food chain) for snacks. I think the last time I ate in that fastfood chain was over 10 years ago so I was really curious about how their burgers taste now. I ordered the classic burger, and oh boy, it was huge! I only managed to finish half of the burger. Not that it was bad, it was actually good. The patty was very juicy and tender, and has a very homemade taste and feel about it. The only thing I didn't like was that it left me burping it hours after I have consumed it.

I was thinking about lingering flavors and odors of food when I remembered a news article I read about a meat scented cologne for men. Just last Christmas, Burger King released its men's spray line called Flame. As the name suggests, it is a flame-broiled burger scented cologne. Photo courtesy of 411chatter.com

I just find that really odd. For the sake of argument, I will be going by stereotypes. Men like meat generally more than women. Women love sweets generally more than men. If colognes or perfumes are used for seduction, then what would a meat-scented cologne for men attract? More men? I think women will be more turned on by sweet-smelling scents like chocolate, cinnamon or vanilla. Perhaps men will have more success in attracting a partner (granting they are men seeking women, not men seeking men) if they smell sugary sweet? Maybe men should seriously consider wearing a sweet scent instead. It's not always about machismo. It's about being "man" enough to wear what may be labeled as a "girly" scent in order to be attractive to the female set. Now, if men still want to smell like burgers, maybe they should go all the way and throw in an onion ring scented hair spray and french fries flavored mouth spray.

More on burgers, I saw a feature in CNN this evening about cheeseburgers in a can. Believe it or not, Swiss company Katadyn has either invented the biggest success or the worst blunder in the canned food business history.

After seeing a video of how the burger looks like in youtube, I am led to believe it is the latter. I would imagine that the bread is soggy, and I just hate burgers with a soggy bread. What's worse, you would have to heat it first, and by heating, the manufacturers mean submerging the entire can in boiling water for 10 minutes. So, soggy, tin-flavored burgers anyone? Definitely not for me.

This obsession with burgers can get sometimes get out of hand. Would you sleep in a burger bed? Photo courtesy of likecool.com

I can't blame people for going to extremes just because of burgers. I love burgers. There is a Jughead Jones hiding in me. In fact, I can't wait to try this new burger joint in Kapitolyo Pasig called Charlie's Grind and Grill that serve black angus burgers. Oh man, I am hungry again.

Sale! and Women-Friendly HR Best Practices

With the exception of cheesy romantic lines, no other words can probably elicit so much excitement and rapture among women than the word SALE.

From June 4-7, there will be a big brands sale exclusive to HSBC cardholders for SSI brands in Nuvo City. For those who do not know, SSI (Store Specialists Inc.) is the firm responsible for bringing mid-scale to luxury brands in the country (think Zara, Debenhams, Gap, Bass, Lacoste, Nine West, Ralph Lauren, YSL, Cartier, Marc Jacobs, Kate Spade, Gucci, Bally, etc). Discounts on items will go as high as 70% so my eyes sparkled with anticipation.

Note however, that I don't go for the ritzy, ultra-upscale brands. It's not only because I cannot afford them; I just don't think I can be comfortable spending way too much on single piece of item. My idea of indulgence is just zara, lacoste, debenhams, ralph lauren, gap, and the like.

When I was still a corporate slave in what seems like a lifetime ago, I always hated it when stores hold the first day of the sale on a working day. I was always tempted to take a leave (I think I did on a few occasions when my workload wasn't up to my neck). And now that time is in my hands, I can be the very first person you see eagerly waiting outside the door of the store on day 1 of the sale. The only problem is, I no longer have the money to splurge on shopping. What a cruel, cynical world!

I am reminded of a news article that I read before about a company in Japan that offers "shopping sale" leaves to its employees. The women working in this company no longer have to feign sickness on the day of the sale; they just take a duly authorized leave to shop. I guess this company realized that without a sale leave, the female employees won't be productive anyways, as their minds would be suffering from missing out on all the bargains. Either that or the company will suddenly discover a sudden outbreak of a flu that manifests on the day of the sale and miraculously heals the day after the sale. So, this firm gave what the women wanted: a paid leave to to go shopping; an opportunity for the women to enjoy the fruits of their labor.

This very same company also offers "heartache leaves" to females employees who have just gone through a breakup. This is to give time for women to nurse and lick their wounds, and get themselves together before reporting to work. The older the employee, the longer the heartache leave. The rationale being: younger women have more chances to find a new love compared to older women. Again, this company realized that heartbroken women are nowhere near productive during the first few hours or days following a breakup. This company understood its female employees and the complex dynamics of female behavior.

This Japanese company is very women-friendly. Sale and Heartbreak leaves are almost the equivalent of a maternity leave or a PTA session leave. Women in different stages of the life cycle have different needs and priorities. For the single, upwardly mobile woman, it is fashion (self-indulgence or gratification) and romance. For the married set, it is the family. I may be generalizing a little here, and I am sorry if I stereotyped the single and the married women. I just did a generalization to make a point: Human Resource best practices can be as creative as giving leaves like those I mentioned in the above. It need not be all monetary benefits (although time off from work has financial implications as well). An HR benefit strategy can also be very focused or targeted, meaning providing different benefits for different kinds of employees. The key is to understand your employees and know what ticks for them. Now I wonder if any company offers PMS leaves?

If I were employed in that Japanese firm, I'd be one satisfied employee. Sadly, I am not in Japan and I have chosen the road less travelled by becoming a starving freelance writer. I will still go to the sale tomorrow with my sister in law and just drool over the bargains that I see. I will do my best to restrain from shopping. God help me!

Rafa's Reign over Roland Garros is Over

The King is Dead!  Technically, not dead, just out. Out of the 2009 French Open, that is.  

(Photo courtesy of www.morethangames.co.uk)

Rafael Nadal, the King of the Clay Court is defeated at last.  His 31-match winning streak in Roland Garros was finally ended by the most unusual of suspects.   The man responsible for this huge upset is seeded 23 Robin Soderling of Sweden.    

(Photo courtesy ofwww.rolandgarros.com)

I began to entertain hopes of seeing cracks in Nadal's unassailability after he lost in the Madrid Masters finals to Roger Federer about a fortnight ago.  I thought that maybe Federer now has a very good chance to topple Nadal.  Perhaps Nadal can be beaten too, and I was hoping that Fernando Verdasco can avenge his semifinals loss in the Australian Open earlier this year by defeating him in a quarterfinal match in Paris.   Now, if Verdasco won't be able to finish the job, I have another layer of defense in Andy Murray in the semifinals.  Remember that Murray beat Nadal in the US Open semifinals last year and in the ABN Amro finals this year.  Murray also gave Nadal a scare in Monte Carlo earlier, although in that match, Nadal emerged victorious.  ESPN even shortlisted candidates who they thought could do the impossible job of eliminating Nadal in Roland Garros.  Apart from Federer, Verdasco and Murray, they were placing their bets on Djokovic, Davydenko, Tsonga, Del Potro and Gonzales.  

But none of these things will happen now.  Soderling pulled a big surprise.   Nadal is sent packing in the 4th round, too early in the tournament.   Hats off to Soderling!   I must confess I didn't know Soderling until today.  After a little research, I learned that he is the only Swede in the top 100 ATP rankings.  His coach, Magnus Norman, is a runner-up in Roland Garros in 2000, losing to Gustavo Kuerten.  He has 3 singles career titles, and is currently ranked 25 in the world.  He has never made it past round 3 in any grand slam.  This round of 16 match with the score 6-2 6-7(2) 6-4 7-6(2) is probably the biggest win in Soderling's career. 

Who would have guessed that Soderling will be the man to make Nadal throw in the towel in his favorite clay surface?  Nobody thought so;  everybody was stunned.   I am now hoping for another big surprise.   I want Federer to win this time.   With Nadal out, the coast is clearer for him.   I am keeping my fingers crossed.  

Laptop Injuries and Sickness

My laptop is my office.   My laptop is my best friend, or maybe not; that may be too shallow a connection.   My laptop is an extension of my body and a mirror of my soul.   I practically sleep with my laptop.  Just a few hours away from it already makes me suffer from withdrawal symptoms.  It goes without saying that my laptop should be partnered with a wifi connection.    I will not get past one day without internet access.  You might as well just kill me.   

Now, who would have thought that laptop-ping could be such a dangerous sport?  Seriously, it is bad for one's health.  Here now are some of the ways this laptop addiction has afflicted me:

Finger Numbness.  Too much typing from all that e-book writing (note that I'm putting the blame on the writing, not the chatting) sometimes causes my fingers to become numb and have a bloated feeling about them.  There are days when it is so hard to ball them up in a fist.   Of course, the heat emanating from the laptop also exacerbates my sweaty palms problem.  But the real culprit for sweaty palms is too much texting (SMS), and that's another story.

Wrist Pains.  Fortunately, I don't have carpal tunnel syndrome yet.  But I am probably at risk.  Oh, I blame those darn facebook games!  I take my games seriously.  Caring for my pet in one of my games requires advanced hand maneuvers and sophisticated wrist actions in an almost sleight of hand fashion.  Yes, it can be magic, but it can be bad for the wrist.  

Forearm marks and discoloration.   During the day, I use my laptop and place it atop a regular desk.  Because my forearms are resting on top of the desk, the edges of the table leave marks and lines on my forearms (the skin on the under side which touches the surface of the desk).  Maybe I am applying too much pressure while tinkering with my laptop, or I simply have heavy forearms. Whatever the case, I get the unsightly marks that even become discolored.  

Lower back pains.  I don't have a good posture, and this becomes aggravated by sitting in a slouched position in the chair or in the bed.  Hours on end in that manner equals lower back pains.  No, it's not the age! It's the laptop!

Bottom heaviness.  A cousin of the lower back pains is the relentless expansion occurring in the glutes, hip and thigh area. Because I am reduced to sitting down, I get heavier in that area by the day.  If I could use my laptop while walking in the treadmill, I would.  But I'll get too nauseous; I wouldn't want to vomit on my precious laptop. It makes complete sense anyway; there won't be a lap if I were standing up; hence, no laptop-ping while standing. It has to be done sitting down.  But I am such a genius sometimes.  I transform the laptop to a tummy-top when sitting down becomes too tiring.  I slide into my back and lie down in bed, pulling the laptop up to settle on the tummy, while my head rests on top of many pillows.  Laptop or tummytop, either way, it does not bode well for the figure.  

So there, my list of laptop related injuries is long.   To cure them would not to wean me away from the laptop.   That could be fatal for me.  To be honest, I just need a lap desk.  All these bullshit only for a lap desk. Hahaha. I hope there are lap desks like these available locally.   

The Hunt for Gollum

My friend Oliver posted a note in Facebook about his movie review of The Hunt for Gollum.  Being a huge fan of J.R.R. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings, this naturally piqued my curiosity, so I immediately watched the said movie on this site. (click here). 

The Hunt is just under 40 minutes long.  The plot is inspired by the events occurring right before convening the Fellowship of the Ring in Rivendell, i.e., Aragon's quest to capture Gollum to learn whatever information he has about the ring and how much Sauron already knows.    

As a background, this movie is created by die-hard Lord of the Rings fans in Britain.   Yes, it is fan fiction or fan flick, however you may want to call it.    This movie was made on a shoestring budget of 3,000 pounds.  This non-profit, independent film is not available for commercial release and can only be viewed through video streaming from the official website.  None of the people who worked on this movie got paid.   Given all this in mind, I was half expecting to get an amateur-ish feel to the movie, but I didn't get that all.

Aragon's quest for Gollum was never shown in the movie adaptation by Peter Jackson, so the Hunt for Gollum is a good accompaniment to Peter Jackson's trilogy.  As a matter of fact, the Hunt does feel like it was created by Jackson.   I am no film critic, so in my layman eyes and ears,  the cinematography, the soundtrack, the acting, the costumes were reminiscent of the movie trilogy I so dearly love.  In fact, the cast were dead ringers for the actors in the trilogy, with the exception of Arwen (Rita Ramnani); I thought she was a poor choice.   But I swear I could see Viggo Mortenssen in Aragorn's character in the Hunt (Adrian Webster), especially when his eyes were closed while sleeping.   

The fighting scenes with the Orcs and Nazgul added the layer of suspense, and I remembered the jumpy feeling I had watching the Battle of Helm's Deep in The Two Towers.  Well, to be honest, the fight scenes were not that superb, but they were good enough to take me back to the best scenes in Jackson's trilogy.   Seeing Nazguls almost had me looking for our Lord of the Rings DVDs to do a marathon right away.   And given that this movie was created by non-hollywood professionals with no intention to sell and profit from it already predisposes one to have a soft spot for it.  

I am a big fan of both the book and the movie.  I wonder what the purists have to say about the liberties or the adaptations taken for this movie.   But to me, there weren't many departures (or maybe my memory is that bad, I vaguely remember how Aragorn captured Gollum as described in Tolkien's novel). But like I said, this movie is a fitting complement to Jackson's Trilogy.  

I guess what I am saying is this: The Hunt for Gollum is worthy of being called "My Precious".  Go watch it.  

Augustana

I am glad I am back to blogging again after being saddled by a writing gig.   I am proud to report that I just finished my first e-book.   Even if I got paid only peanuts for it,  I am so ecstatic over the feeling of having accomplished something, however small that is.  It takes only a little to make me happy these days.  I hope my bubble doesn't burst.

Moving on to the topic of this blog... I am so loving Augustana!  I must confess I only took a liking for the band recently, even if they have been around since 2003.   Their track Boston has gained huge mainstream success especially after being featured as a soundtrack to One Tree Hill. I like that track; the lyrics are beautifully melancholic.  It is a great song to listen to when you feel like escaping or running away.   But the band didn't appeal to me then.  Maybe because I don't watch One Tree Hill, nor do I have intentions to watch it.   I just know the song, but I didn't know the band.

Then I saw the Counting Crows performing Cecilia on Good Morning America and I noticed that they were jamming with another band.   Click here to watch the video.  (BTW, Counting Crows is probably my favorite band of all time.  I love Adam Duritz!!!)   After a quick google search, I learned they were performing with who else, Augustana.   So I instantly Last.Fm'd Augustana and downloaded some of their tracks. And the rest, as they say, is history.   I am now a huge fan of Augustana.

I think Augustana is like the Counting Crows and the Googoo Dolls combined.   I love that some lyrics are painfully sad, a testament to the heavy Counting Crows influence, but they are a little edgier ala the Googoo Dolls or maybe Lifehouse.  Last.fm describes the band this way: Characterized by piano lines and the breathy vocals of Dan Layus (the lead singer), Augustana’s sound is at once contemplative and slow, but also captivating.   It is no wonder I like Augustana.

From the songs I've downloaded, I have been so taken by the track "Found My Place". It is one of their more obscure songs, and generally unheard of unlike their hits Sweet and Low and Boston.   It is definitely my favorite Augustana song.  I love the acoustic guitar background, and this track sounds very similar to Time of Your Life/Good Riddance by Greenday.    The lyrics are very simple; there are only a few lines but you get the message.  It is a song about redemption, about being lost and being found.  I hope I can find my place too.  

Listen to the track below:

Real Deal or Real Ill Will?

Philippine Airlines (PAL) recently offered The Real Deal Promo where international fares were at rock bottom prices. 

I don’t recall seeing PAL airfares this low.  Imagine going to many destinations and back for less than half the regular fare , it doesn’t get any better than that.  You are almost tempted to ask, is this too good to be true?

The answer is YES!

I am not referring to the prices. While the promo was true to its claim regarding ticket prices (e.g. roundtrip to the US incl. travel tax is just about P25,000 or $520, roundtrip to HK is just P5400 or $110), the PROBLEM WAS HOW YOU ARE EVER GOING TO BOOK AND BUY YOUR TICKETS.

The promo was exclusively offered for just 2 days and you have to purchase the tickets online.    So come midnight of Apr 27, I opened the PAL website ready to make my online purchase.    And I couldn’t believe how slow the site was.  I had to try a hundred times within 4 hours during the wee hours of the morning before I was even prompted for payment.  And after keying in my credit card details, the screen went blank on me and soon gave me an error message.   I got anxious over it, worrying whether I should re-book at the risk of double-charging or not.

The following morning, I got confirmation from my bank that no payment from PAL was effected.   I then tried to book online again but the same thing happened.   Seeing how hopeless it will be to try to book online, I called the PAL customer service hotline.   After about 2 hours of trying to connect my call, I finally got my booking reference number and was told that I could just go to my preferred ticketing office to pay. I said to myself, this is okay.  I will still get the online fare rate and I can manage to sneak to the ticketing office the following day with my sister in law after dropping off my nephew to school, and be back in time to pick him up.

I could never be more wrong.  When we finally got to the ticketing office at around 11am, we were astounded to see the sheer volume of people waiting inside.   If my estimate is right, there were over 3000 people who wanted to transact on that day.  People were everywhere trying to ask what to do next and were given conflicting instructions.  Some were told to just get the customer queue stubs;  Some were told to just write their names in a piece of paper. 

After lodging our names in the paper, I thought that maybe this will take me about 2 hours considering there were 25 counters open, so I can manage a 2-hour wait.   Again, I could never be more wrong.   The 2 hours stretched to 9 maddening hours!!!  Throughout that time, I saw people ultra-pissed at the lack of system in the way PAL is managing the surge in customers.   People were lost.   They didn’t know where to go, where to list their names, where to get their tickets, where to sit down to wait, who to approach, etc.  The people who came after lunch were advised that for as long as they are there before 5pm (closing time), they shall be served.  PAL will do overtime or overnight just to accommodate everybody who came before the cut off date.

But at around 5pm, PAL announced that they cannot serve everybody and that those whose names were listed in pages 4 onwards would have to come back the following day. That's insane!  Imagine, after waiting for hours and hours, you will be asked to just come back the following day and go through the same ordeal all over again?   Thank God our names were listed in page 2!

I cannot believe how unprepared PAL was for this promo.  First, they under-forecasted the public response.   This is a big no-no.  If you are going to offer something good, you better be sure that you have the sufficient capacity to actually fulfill that promise.   It is always better to over-prepare than to under-serve.  Their website was ill-prepared for the surge in hits and traffic.  Why make the promo online if the system can’t handle it?   There may be cases of double booking and those poor people will have to wait 2 weeks or more before charges can be reversed.   

Second, PAL should have had a back up plan.  Obviously, there wasn’t one.  The phone hotlines were forever busy, the ticketing offices were undermanned, the customer care people were not there to help manage the complaints.   At the very least, they could have offered free coffee or water to people waiting.  They should have provided for extra chairs inside the ticketing office.  They ought to have opened up a few telephone hotlines to answer queries.   There should should have been regular updates in the PA system on what was currently happening. There ought to have been at least a flow chart at the entrance of each ticketing office explaining the step by step process for the real deal promo ticketing.   These things are fairly easy to do; I don’t know why they haven’t thought of them. 

I pity the ground staff who had to bear the brunt of the customer complaints. This can already be classified as a crisis – a customer bad will crisis, one of the more terrifying things that can happen to a your customer relations strategy.  Apparently, there was no crisis management and no customer care management neither. The real deal turned out to be a real ill-will.

Fortunately, I am more relaxed and less uptight lately, so I waited patiently and passively compared to other customers.   Had I been caught in a bad mood, I would have left immediately after being given conflicting directions.  Patience indeed is rewarding.   I got our tickets.   I saved quite a lot, especially since we booked 6 tickets in all.   Unfortunately, I am not that grateful.  I didn’t ask for this promo anyway as a special favor.  PAL offered it, they are duty bound to honor it.  That is precisely why I have decided to rant about my real hassle from the real deal promo in this post.