WengOnline

I’ve been working at this Starbucks branch in an upscale mall near my home for the past few days, taking advantage of the wifi and the constant smell of coffee. They say that the world economies are slowing down, but I can notice here that the consumeristic attitude has not slowed one bit. I haven’t been keeping actual count, but it looks like at least one customer walks away with something worth Php 100+ every 2 minutes. A cup of coffee here averages Php 90, while most cold drinks go for Php 110-150 and even more, depending on the size.

A bunch of kids (about 4 or 5 pre-teens) just walked away with large or in Starbucks lingo ‘Grande Frappucinos.’ I am writing this draft on a Friday afternoon and these kids are out in the malls just a few minutes after classes were dismissed. Note that the closest high school is just across the street.

You’d think the wired world would pull you away from real life. On the contrary, as a mobile worker, we meet many more people in coffee shops, interact with fellow mobile workers and coffee aficionados — unless you put on your do-not-disturb face. Just now, in the span of 20 minutes, two others have asked if they could sit with me. I’m in a Starbucks location about 10-15 minutes from home in an upscale shopping mall. I was seated alone in a huddle of four single sofas.

The only downside I encounter is the constant need to have a companion or at least find a trusted shop you can go to so that you can leave your stuff for washroom breaks. Even if I could bolt down my laptop, I sometimes have another bag with me for other stuff which I cannot secure to the coffee tables.

A friend is selling her Nintendo Game Cube (US). It’s silver and in excellent condition. Selling price is Php 8000.

Including:

• 1 controller
• 7 Games
• 1 memory card

Games:

1. Animal Crossing (Simulation) **BEST SELLING GAME**
2. Harvest Moon: Another Wonderful Life (Simulation) **BEST SELLING GAME**
3. Baten Kaitos (2 disk RPG)
4. True Crime: New York City (Action)
5. Mortal Combat: Annihilation (Action)
6. Legend of Zelda: 4 Swords

Console and games can also be bought separately.

Please call 8138412 and ask for Maribel.

Wordpress is now 2.6! I was tinkering with my local copy of Wordpress for the office site and saw a nice little update. More info on the official blog here.

I like the ability to preview the templates on your site without really applying them. I used to dump a database backup to preview new themes or do a quick upload and ’see live’ the template effects. It did take a while to generate the preview on my local copy, I’ll do a few more tests on the server later, might just be the machine specs. This laptop sure is getting old, but it works fine for light work.

Anyhoo, here’s a video of the changes from 2.5.1 to 2.6:

Question/Problem: Take two similar phones, call the same customer service number, get instant answers (or rather live cusomter support representatives) on one phone and then be put on hold for 30 minutes on the other (yeah, I timed it). What’s the difference?

A simple fact. I was using a postpaid line on the phone which got instant access to a live customer support representative, the other one was on a prepaid line. I’ve tried calling on my postpaid line to access customer service, but they say they have limited access to the prepaid numbers.

Now, I really have a hard time understanding this. Try to compute how mcuh they earn from me:

1. The minimum monthly charge I get for my postpaid line is Php 500 (~$10). This rises to a high of Php 1,000 on months when I am involved in projects where the team might be in diffrent locations. While a friend of mine on postapid and on the same network spends roughly 4x the amount I do.
2. Every two years, I get a new low end mobile phone which costs around Php 3,800 to as high as Php 4,500 as a customer retention plan.
3. I sometime login to yahoo messenger using my mobile but always as an alternative to the net, so they do not charge me.
4. On occasion, I use the surfing capabilities of my phone to check mail, message a few buddies, and obtain short bits of information, but this does not go over Php 100 per month.

Tell me again how prepaid customers are more likely to contribute to churn? I’m tied to this operator for the next 25 months because of the new phone (which I’ve already sold), but I’m still pretty happy with their service. It is only during those times that I have to call the prepaid hotline that I get the loooooong wait.

I’ve been trying to put off writing until I’ve finished school stuff. With comprehenesive exams coming up soon, I have to manage and juggle a lot of things, but I feel that this has to be posted.

I haven’t felt the pinch of the gas prices up until recently when I noticed more and more cabbies are tinkering with their meters. In my previous post, I mentioned how to read the meters for taxi cabs here in the Philippines, so I can pretty much estimate how much a cab ride should cost. My regular cab ride costs an average of Php 100. Now, it ranges from Php 140 - Php 170 and that is only with the meter running. Some cabbies even ask for fixed prices when or additional fare on top of the meter charge.

I just got news that they might be raising the flagdown rates to Php 40. Well, tomorrow is another work day so I’ll find out then.

I was having lunch with a couple of friends yesterday and one of them mentioned that there were prophecies for the China quake. She said that there’s also one for the Philippines soon, no definite location yet. Did a quick google for ‘earthquake philippines prophecy’ and found this:

JULY 18, 2008 - PHILIPPINES WILL GET 8.1 EARTHQUAKE, thousands of people will die.

Please let us be alert and mark this date July 18, 2008, Friday, let’s be prepared and let us all PRAY that this will not happen to us. If possible: Please don’t go to work especially those with office located in high places, buildings, condos and malls.

A couple of other sites list more details on what he has predicted so far. Give the fact that we live in the Ring of Fire, and that we have not experienced a major quake in the last few years, there really is a high possiblity. I take all of them with a grain of salt, but I would also like to give this warning: be prepared at all times.

I live in a condominium and I just felt two quakes within this hour so they must be way off with their prophecies.