HD + Fiber Optic Cable @ Home Theater

I connected the WD TV unit to our home theater projector using the component video cables because the projector does not support HDMI. I wanted to test how HD videos appear using standard component video cables. I previously assumed that it will only work on HDMI because of all the details, but I guess not.

We watched Green Hornet in 720p HD and it was very clear. It can really spoil you from watching "standard definition" DVD rips. The audio was also fantastic using the fiber optic cable that my friend, Andrian, lent me. I connected it to the Harman Kardon receiver and the sound was very crisp.

My only complaint is that the video seem to go reddish now and then. I would need to pull the component video cable and re-connect it for the color to go back to normal. The connector seems pretty tight, but it appears like one of the Y-Pb-Pr signal loses every so often.

My Most Expensive Japanese Meal Ever

We had lunch today at Sushi Kappo Kobikicho in Legaspi Village, Makati. We were supposed to eat here last Saturday but the place is quite popular and its small 10-seater sushi bar could not fit us. So I had the reservation moved to this week.

I was fore-warned that this place was expensive. But Cols has been wanting to eat Japanese and I figured it wouldn't hurt to splurge on good Japanese food once in a while. And since this place had very good reviews, we took the plunge.

One of the house specialty is the toro (blue fin tuna). So when the manager offered it along with salmon sushi, we immediately agreed without even looking at the price. Then I ordered a meat dish and Cols had tempura. The main entrees were actually not that fantastic in my opinion. But the toro, man! That was something else. The reviewer was correct -- it really does melt in your mouth. And being first-timers, the manager was extra generous to us and gave us 10 pieces instead of the usual 8.

Finally the bill came, and I already braced myself. I was expecting our "simple" meal to be in the neighborhood of P4k. But my eyes almost popped out when I saw we racked up P7.5k, with the toro alone costing P4k already! At 10 pieces, that's P400 per piece! Ouch!

It was an experience for sure. But I don't think we'll be coming back here anytime soon. Maybe it was vaule-for-money, but somehow, it felt morally indecent to have spent that much on a meal when other people only earn that much in a month.

If its any consolation, I did use my Standard Chartered card which comes with a 3% off on restaurant spends, and a P300 gift certificate promo from Fully Booked.

Very Poor Service at Bank of Commerce

I opened a personal bank account and a corporate bank account at Bank of Commerce about a month back. I intended to use both for Dragonpay. Bank of Commerce was a small-time bank until it was bought by giant San Miguel Corporation a couple of years ago. So I figure with SMC's backing, its only a matter of time before Bank of Commerce would join the big league.

The bank staff seemed pretty excited to get me as a new client. The bank managers were very friendly. But I was caught a bit off-guard when they couldn't seem to agree on what is the correct maintaining balance for a corporate account. From P10k, to P20k to P25k, they cannot seem to agree among themselves. Maybe that should have been a sign of things to come.

When last I inquired, they told me it was P10k. So when I came to open the account about a month ago, I only brought P10k with me. Then they tell me that the minimum opening balance is P10k, but the minimum maintaining balance should be P20k to avoid getting penalized. Huh? Why didn't they just tell me P20k to begin with? Why would anyone want to open anything less than that minimum if they were going to be fined? As my voice started to increase in pitch and volume, the manager pacified me by saying that she will give me up to a month to bring my balance to P20k without any penalty, and gave me some freebie organizers. That issue was resolved for now.

From the time I opened both accounts, it took them about 10 working days to produce my ATM card. That's terrible! The major banks can give it to you in a couple of days. Some like Citibank and PSBank even give it to you on-the-spot. 10 days?! That's so 90's!

Then came the biggest problem -- the corporate Internet banking facility. They dragged this for almost a month giving me all sorts of lame excuses why it was not yet activated. Until finally, they admitted they cannot offer it. It seems that among all their corporate clients, only San Miguel was actually given this facility. No other corporate clients can actually use their corporate Internet banking. Huh?! Then why even bother to offer it at their site?

I finally got fed up today and went to the branch and closed both my personal and corporate account. I returned my unused checkbook and had them refund the cost to me and waive all early closure fees. San Miguel Corp. should do something about this. It was just a plain awful experience doing banking with Bank of Commerce.

OMG! Obama's Dead (and other gaffes)

After 10 years, the US special forces have finally tracked down Osama bin Laden in Pakistan and killed him. News of his death grabbed front page headlines in news and print everywhere. The resulting news took a hilarious turn when newscasters, podcasters, twits confused "Osama" with "Obama". Suddenly, US President Barrack Obama was killed off!

With only 1 letter separating the two names, the similarity can be quite confusing. Read this article for excerpts.

Switching DSL Providers

I finally bit the bullet and took the big switch. After more than 2 years of using Bayan DSL at our house, I finally gave up and switched to PLDT MyDSL. While Bayan's service for the most part of the first 2 years was satisfactory, the last 3 months or so have just been awful. The IP link keeps going down intermittently, sometimes almost every minutes. I was originally planning on getting a PLDT DSL when we first moved in. But at that time, PLDT's DSLAM at our subdivision is already full and could not accomodate new connections until they migrate the entire network into their NGN (Next Generation Network).

As far as I can tell, it was not a physical problem as the modem stays "green". Viewing the router status shows that the IP addresses also look fine but the router is in a "disconnected" status. I'm not sure exactly how Belkin determines that status. Its probably doing a ping to an ip address on the other side of the link. But to restore connection, I have to do a disconnect/reconnect cycle on the router everytime this happens. It has gotten to a point that it was a major pain already.

PLDT's MyDSL implementation is a lot simpler than Bayan's. The Zyxel modem connects to their DSLAM and generates a dynamic IP which you can directly plug to a PC or a router. Bayan's implementation is over PPPoE. So a login process is required. Much more cumbersome.

Our PHP 899 Bayan DSL can supposedly burst to 1.2 Mbps during off-peak hours. But that feature is practically useless if the link keeps going down anyway. The new PLDT MyDSL is PHP 990 inclusive of our landline already for a 384 kbps. So far, the performance seems the same though for regular browsing. PLDT's upstream link seem to be slower though. When I tried uploading images of more than 300 MB to TransferBigFiles.com, I left it overnight and by morning, it was still not halfway done.

As a side effect of the PLDT migration to NGN, we had to change our home phone number just to avail of this DSL. Sigh... too bad there is no number portability in the Philippines even within the same telco.

The Big Royal Wedding of the Century Question

It was the wedding of the century as Prince William, heir to the throne of Britain, married commoner, Catherine (Kate) Middleton. This made me think of a very profound question -- what the heck is Prince William's last name anyway? They are always labeled as "Prince William and Kate Middleton". But how do you exactly address them as a couple -- "Mr. & Mrs" what?

We know William's middlename is Spencer, since that is Princess Diana's surname. But what is Prince Charles' lastname? Do royals even have lastname? Or are they like "Ivan the Terrible", or "Prince Charles of Windsor", or "King Richard the Lionheart". Or is he Prince William son-of-Charles?

Prince Charles must have a lastname because his dad (the husband of Queen Mum) is a regular person (not some king). So it follows that William's lastname must be that of his grandfather. Unless he is not allowed to carry it since the grandfather is not of the royal bloodline.

Terrible Pico Sands Hotel Experience

For the Holy Week break, we came over to Hamilo Coast. The folks were staying at the unit so we were booked at the newly opened Pico Sands Hotel. The hotel was still in "soft opening" (translated - staff still inexperienced). When we got there, the lobby queue was really long. All the customers were irate due to the very poor and slow service. The housekeeping could not clean the rooms fast enough for the next occupant, and so on.

To top it all off, there was no water in the rest room due to some equipment breakdown. We decided to move out after the overnight stay and just squeezed in with the folks. The hotel gave us a 20% discount on our stay, and charged us a lower fee for our lagoon-facing room, which we did not get to enjoy anyway.

The hotel management really rushed this in time for Holy Week. They should have made sure their staff was prepared before jumping in. This left a bad taste in everyone's mouth.