Places in my past (Part 2)
Was in the QC area again today, in the Retiro area where an old aunt lives, and where we used to be every Sunday when I was a little girl. The Lourdes Church was where we went to hear mass decades ago. My aunt and I would head out from the house in Cabatuan just off A. Bonifacio, pick up her sisters who lived in an apartment on A. Bonifacio, drive up Mayon St and then turn left on Retiro. My aunt would park her Ford Taunus on one of the side streets a block away from the Lourdes Church and then we’d hear mass. This was usually followed by a trip for groceries at Century Grocery (now the Metrobank at the corner of Mayon and Retiro).
Sam and I stood at the intersection of Mayon and Retiro around noon this Friday. The area looked different to him as well. After we saw my aunt we walked up Retiro (now N.S. Amoranto) towards Banaue. What used to be a quiet, even sleepy district was now a bustling area with banks and mini-malls at every corner. When we reached the corner of Banaue where the jeepney terminal was, we got on a jeep going up to Quezon Ave. The final destination?
Ma Mon Luk, Quezon Avenue. This place is a classier version (and the only other branch) of the restaurant in Quiapo but the food is the same yummy and very filling walang kamatayang mami and siopao. The pictures here are from my camera phone hence the poor quality. We had the special and regular siopao and the small mami and softdrinks and the final bill was a teeny bit over P300 (under US$6.00). Now that’s a good meal.
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- Ma Mon Luk, Q Ave
Reminiscing the Bic
Ok, let’s take a ride down memory lane again (old people tend to do that, my young readers) and if you’re below 30 years of age you will probably have no idea what I’m talking about here.
Grade school, in our time, was measured by the kind of writing material you were required to have. When I was in kindergarten we had big black pencils with soft lead tips, very friendly to five- and six- year old hands. Grade one requirement was the yellow Mongol pencil, No. 1, which I have retained a love for because No 1′s were better to draw with. But in second grade, we were required to write with ballpoint pens. And what ball pens did we have back then?
We had the Bic Ballpen. The orange body ones that had fine points, with their covers telling you what ink color they had. I rather liked the orange Bic until I discovered the crystal Bic. I fell in love with the crystal Bic. After the crystal Bic my writing life was never the same again.
Through the years so many other brands of ink pens came into the market, but none were ever quite like the Crystal Bic. Not the Reynolds and certainly not the Kilometrico. A year or two ago I went into a ballpen buying phase and would hang out at an Office Warehouse outlet or at a National Bookstore branch just trying out pens and buying four or five at a time. Sometimes I’d use them up myself, sometimes I’d hand them off to Sam or to Kuya Maui to use for school.
How about you — what’s your favorite writing implement? Are you very particular with what you write with?
Get your game on!
My first taste of computer gaming was with the Nintendo family computer. I used to take turns with my eldest son, who was about six years old at the time, on the castoff unit from my sister, who had upgraded to the latest version. We had game cartridges for Mario, Galaga, Bomber Man and such. The cartridges themselves upgraded to the point where multiple games were housed in one cartridge. I got hooked on the thing to the point of waking up in the middle of the night and creeping downstairs so I can sneak in a few games before the household woke up.
I suppose you could say I levelled up with the introduction of the Personal Computer into our household. This was the time when a PC didn’t have a hard disk, and that you operated with two floppy 5.25″ drives; one for the DOS and one for your computer program or game. When we finally got a hard disk it was a whopping 128mb (yes you read that right, 128MB) which had enough room for a higher version of Windows 3.11, Wordstar and Prince of Persia.
When I started on a regular job I’d lost touch with the latest innovations in video gaming. It was only recently when I actually saw a PSP and what it could do. My co-worker had brought his to the office and showed it to me, and I just looked at it, I didn’t even touch it, as if I was wary that I might break it. I asked my 16 year old son if by chance he was interested in one, just so I’d know what to save up for come Christmas, but he said he didn’t want one, he’d rather have an iPod shuffle.
So it looks like there’s no pressure. I can be a kid again and take the time to review all the handheld systems guides and video games guides on my favorite wiki website, SHOPWiki. There’s no better place to learn about the latest in video gaming technology.
Go and get your game on!
Take me back in time
Nothing like a weekend of movie flashbacks. I’ve lined up my slob list for this weekend. Braveheart, Ever After, The Name of the Rose, The Other Boleyn Girl, Robin Hood (the Patrick Bergin one, not the Kevin Costner one). Not just a bunch of people in renaissance clothing, I think it’s a healthy mix of history and fantasy. I’ve got boxes of microwaveable popcorn on the ready and pitchers of mango juice and cold water (the popcorn is bad enough without softdrinks). Dim the lights and turn on the surround sound. Time to turn the room into a time machine.
About Me
