August 24, 2012

The Pork Chop and the Staple Wire

Friday, August 24, 2012 Posted by Mary , , No comments
My close friends and I always go out for dinner every week. It started out as a "Thursday habit" that was then moved to Friday and subsequently became "TGIF." This week, my friend Lyn, who is the executive secretary of Silliman University's Founder's Week Committee (the festivities are ongoing, by the way) said that Friday night would be too busy for her. So we decided on a Thursday dinner again. Last night, basically. We chose to dine at Cafe Antonio.

The process of choosing a restaurant for our weekly gastronomic excursion is actually quite serious. The gang and I have a Facebook group, and it's there that we have a weekly poll on where we are to eat. There are always three choices of restaurants that we have not visited recently, and then we take our pick. 

I start the poll, because I have become the "bored" one who has all the time in the world to put up polls on Facebook. This week, the choices were Cafe Antonio, Gabby's Bistro and Hayahay Treehouse Bar and View Deck. Cafe Antonio came out as the unanimous winner, I guess because we have never been there together. 

Cafe Antonio is known for good food, great coffee, and awesome live music. When we got there, however, it was really warm (only one air conditioner was on). The tables were small, and the chairs too big. But we got past that. We are not divas after all. We are fairly easy to please, and we tip well--but that is beside the point. We settled in and started eating only after a short while, because in fairness, the food arrived very quickly.

We were almost done. I was chewing daintily on my food when all of a sudden I felt something hard between my teeth. I tried chewing again, trying to feel it, and when I was finally able to spit it out, it was a staple wire! A freakin' staple wire in my sizzling pork chop! I was horrified. I didn't even want to dwell on what might have happened if I had swallowed the thing. Thank God I didn't. Thank God!

We told the waiters what happened and they said they would replace the food. But I didn't want to eat anymore. I was really quite shook up. I no longer had to pay for the pork chop, but heck, that did not erase the fact that there was a staple wire my food! The experience was really quite distressing. We hightailed it out of there, and needless to say, this gang will never be going back to that place again.

Now friends, there is a moral lesson to this: always chew your food properly. Especially when you're at a restaurant! After all, you don't know what unwanted things lurk in that plate of seemingly tantalizing food.


The culprit.

August 22, 2012

Wedding Invitations

Wednesday, August 22, 2012 Posted by Mary , No comments
Coming up with the perfect invitation for your wedding can be quite stressful. Since it's the first thing your guests will see, it has to make an impact. It needs to have personality! So when my wedding planner told me that no one does embossed printing and there were limitations on what could be done in my hometown of Dumaguete, I immediately went online to check my options.

Fortunately, there are a number of print shops in Manila that allow you to order invitations online. Upon perusing their websites, I decided on Cardprints because they had this design that I just kept going back to. What made me decide? The uncommon, long, vertical layout and the unique lock!





I ordered a sample of their work and then customized the design to fit our colors of light pink and matte gold. After payment (which can be done through credit card or bank transfer), I told them about the layout I wanted and sent all the details that needed to be on the invites. All of our communication was done through email. After a production period of two weeks, the result was something that I was truly happy with!





Aside from Cardprints, here are other print shops that specialize in amazing invitations for your big day:


So to all future brides out there, don't fret! There are a lot of great print shops online, and your perfect invitation is just an email away!

August 20, 2012

Like Books? Go Kindle!

Monday, August 20, 2012 Posted by Mary , , No comments
Ever since the Amazon Kindle came out, I've always wanted it. This was before the time of smartphones and tablets. But since it's basically just an e-reader, I never really made an effort to get one. Until a few weeks ago, when a friend of mine offered to sell his fairly-new Kindle Touch to me.






I love the device! Before I got my hands on this Kindle Touch, I'd already downloaded the Kindle app for my Android phone and my iPod Touch. And it was all great! The Kindle Store offers a wide array of books, and even if you do not wish to purchase anything, you do not have to worry. A lot of books can be downloaded for free.

While Kindle is great as an app on tablets and smartphones, you have to consider the battery life. These devices do not last very long, and most of the time, you won't be able to finish a book before your battery runs out. This is where the real Kindle device really comes in handy. After reading for days on end, the battery life will not disappoint. And although you cannot read in the dark because it doesn't have a back light, the advantage is, it doesn't hurt your eyes so much. Kindle's e-ink technology assures you that reading from it will feel like reading from an actual book--only better, because you can increase the font size!

If you are an avid reader, a Kindle is the way to go in this day and age. I can no longer imagine having heaps of books collecting dust around me in my house. I have my Kindle, and all my books are easily accessible with just the tap of a finger.