the mungo conspiracy

 It's almost exactly a year to the day, that I applied for a replacement SSS ID (that got stolen). ONE WHOLE YEAR and still no ID. How many years, SSS? Please let us know, how many years does it take for you guys to process an ID? Meanwhile, every month, my salary gets deducted 2K (matched by my employer) as my SSS contribution.   This has to be a world record of sorts. I just don't know for what. (update) It is now TWO YEARS, and still no SSS ID. While our neighbors are drafting plans of sending people to the moon or even mars, the SSS can not print IDs.

Me and a dear old friend are currently working together on a new blog The Pinoy Consumer Advocate . It's a blog review of products and services available in the Philippines. The idea is borne out of the frustration of being shortchanged by these big corporate entities who would rather spend millions on advertising instead of giving the customers a good product. Well, alrightee then, if they want to play it that way, spend those millions on advertising, but just know this, deliver a poor product and we will do our darndest to get these products indexed by searched engines as the lemon that they are. Kung may angal ka, i-blog mo dito, http://pinoyconsumeradvocate.blogspot.com/.

So this morning, on my way to do some fieldwork in Zambales, I registered for Smart's Lahat Text Promo. I was supposed to get free texts to all networks, 20 minutes call-time to Smart, TNT, or Red Mobile, and 50 mb worth of internet access, all consumable within the period of 3 days. I texted "LTU50" to 2266. And I received a confirmation textback that stated that indeed I am now registered for the said promo. Late this afternoon, I made the usual call home to my significant other. After which I checked my balance. Lo and behold, my phone call was charged approximately 20 pesos. So I called Smart's customer service to inquire. I told them that I have registered for their promo this morning and called a TNT phone for no more than 3 minutes approximately. The customer service person told me that I should add *2266 before the 11 digit cell number for the promo to work. But I told her that was not stated in the promo. She told me it was. So yeah, maybe, in my break of ...

It is roughly two weeks now since I bought my first Android phone, a Samsung Galaxy Mini. It is a leap from my previous phone, a Nokia model that can be resold now for less than 500 pesos I believe (any takers?). So, the Galaxy Mini is the cheapest, most basic Android phone from Samsung. You get one camera, a 3" touch screen, practically no internal phone memory though 2 gigs are available with the micro SD card sold with the phone. The casing is a little slippery so it is advisable to fit it with a jelly casing. I also bought the scratch-proof screen protector, a new pouch, and a 16 gig micro SD. All in all, I spent roughly 9K pesos for it. Of course, this being my first internet phone, I had to spend more than a day figuring out how to stop losing my load. Yeah, took me that long to figure out how to stop my phone from connecting to the internet -- you have to, or you will be charged 20 pesos per hour by Smart. I've installed free apps from the market, which I love (y...

Using my android phone in gprs country. My late father would have loved this device, being the master typist with two fingers. I'm using only one.

I finally did it. Watched a movie in 3D. Yeba! That this was the first time also means, of course, that I did not watch those blue creatures of James Cameron, not even with all the media hype. Nor did I succumb to all the word of mouth peer pressure. I was missing out they all say. Half my life, some insisted. I remember they said the same thing about "Disney on Ice". I was really interested in the new technology, of course, and it is not from all their convincing. I did want to see what this 3D movie technology is all about. But MOA was just a little too far and the price just a little too steep. And I am a very patient man. I can wait for the technology to come closer to home and the price to a little more reasonable range. I was right. Two years later, 3D movie technology arrived at SM Fairview. 300 pesos a ticket that includes one bucket of buttered pop corn! No, I did not miss the fact that the popcorn is just a clever ploy to sell those overpriced soda -- ...

So it's Monday salary day. As usual, being the paycheck to paycheck guy that I am, I really needed to withdraw money from the atm. BPI has three atms at SM Fairview (close to my apartment). But of course, being the uber-efficient banking people that they are, when it is salary day, 2 out of the 3 will be off-line. 33.33% batting average is MVP performance, if you are a batter in the Major League, not when you are a bank. So ok, the line on the lone working atm was 30-people long. I measured the time of the first person withdrawing to around one minute. Perfect. In this day and age of instant messaging, instant noodles, and one-night-stands, I need to stand in line for half-an-hour or more to get my money. Which is exactly how I want to waste 30 minutes of my life away. Fifteen minutes, and my calculations is coming to bear. I am halfway there. Progress. Ten or so more minutes and the line is now just 5 people long. I can hardly contain my excitement. I am nearly there. But...

KFC Double Down sandwich So KFC has recently announced that it has made a breakthrough in sandwich technology -- a bread-less meat sandwich. Imagine that!  But questions:  1. Is this still technically a sandwich?  2. Was the UN and/or NATO informed about this new development?  3. Is this not a violation of a charter in the Geneva convention? Notice that in the TV ad launching this new product, you have MEN doing the spiel. But of course, KFC is no fool. This product is an action movie without a believable plot. A sports highlight reel without the boring parts. This is sex without foreplay. In other words, MEN will love it! And yes, I am now curious enough to want to try it. :)

I wonder, how much IQ is required to be able to tell the difference between an empty box and not an empty box? This is not a trick question. Do you need a college degree for that? What sort of people would you hire to work for you in a bank? Not as the janitor or even a teller. But someone with responsibility that you would entrust to her/him the password to open up the ATM machine. I made a check deposit using the ATM machine at the Bank of Philippine Islands, Rosario, Cavite, branch Monday last week. I was expecting the check to clear by Thursday that week at the most. But I made a balance inquiry at around 5 pm., that Thursday, and my balance still did not reflect the deposit. And of course, Friday last week was a holiday, so there was no more banking for the rest of the long weekend.  I left town for work, break of dawn, Monday morning. And came back only this Thursday morning. After resting up a bit, I went directly to the bank to inquire about my check. The ATM machine s...

Had to go into the city yesterday and  pick up materials for a project I am currently working on. The file transfer over the internet plan didn't work. So I had to bear the 2 hour commute to and the 2 hour commute back. Before embarking on the long bus ride  home, I had to take a quick lunch at a Chowking. I remembered that my last entry was left a little hanging. And I thought I owed it to you guys to finally ask what's with all the asking your name business all about. "Personal service sir," the almost cute counter-girl answers. Personal service? What personal service? I didn't say that out loud. But the counter-girl probably read my mind and frowned a little when I finally revealed, "Alex is a fake name by the way." When my meal was served, the server said "Enjoy your meal sir Alex." Haha, so that's the personal service she was talking about. First time any Chowking server ever did that. Enjoy your meal sir Alex -- yeba! One mys...

Doing this from a net cafe as Globe is now totally down. That means I have been practically incommunicado for the last 14 hours or so (since the meeting with a client yesterday). I just gave my commitment to a new project that requires me to have reliable internet access that will allow me to download in the gigabytes region. Globe is definitely not it. Aside from that, no blog update today. Blame Globe.  ----------------- Hey. I just noticed, I am the 4,000th visitor to my own blog. Lol.

Your daily conspiracy blog update was brought you by Globe's new error message. See above graphic. First time to get that. End result is the same, I can not register for SuperSurf. But at least, Globe entertains you with their new and innovative ways to FAIL. 

Finally at midnight, the friggin thing worked and I am able to upload this. Globe should have just told us, the consumers, that SuperSurf is a midnight to dawn kinda deal.

For 24 hrs I was unable to register for Globe's SuperSurf50 24 hour unlimited service. Read the conflicting messages above.  Hey you, Globe suit who does not know anything about programming, that is simply a coding error. Some genius in your IT department screwed up. Fix the bug, please! Your product works well when it works. Though not this past few days. I lost 2 million Zynga chips because of your fluctuating signal. Five times, at least, I got booted out when I already made the final three in the Sit N Go. Good thing Zynga chips are not real. And oh yeah, your customer service is totally useless. Why even bother with it? Save yourselves from paying their salaries and us customers from hoping that they will actually help us.  Oh, there is always another option of course. Get some people who can actually help.

On the ride back home yesterday, I saw on one of those humongous billboards lining up the NLEX, an advertisement for Chowking's new product, tender beef broccoli. Maybe I was just hungry on the very long ride yesterday, or maybe the picture was   just  really shot well, but  when I tried it out for lunch half an hour ago,  my great expectations for the new product was definitely not met. It was, ahmm, just ok. No big deal.  It was palatable, don't get me wrong. But the picture on the billboard promised me nothing less than total happiness. My hunger was sated, my curiosity was answered, but my expectations, unfulfilled. The meal in fact reminded me of an argument I once had with Chowking's crew on account of the picture of their pancit canton not meeting reality! The fools must've ordered one pancit from Max's and shot the picture as their own. Haha. Remember those? They are not doing that anymore. But something about the new billboard. I am not too sure wh...

There was a time, believe it or not, when labels actually meant something. Buy Levi's jeans and you know you are getting a good pair. It is a lot more expensive than the usual pair, something like 5 times more, but you know it's worth it. The thinking was, you have to pay for quality.  When I was young, I could never afford to buy Levi's jeans. But I was lucky enough to have been gifted by someone with an original pair. That lasted me all of 5 years. And even when it was already thread bare, ratty, and had holes in it, it was still a pair of Levi's. That meant something. It was cool to wear old ratty Levi's, holes and all.  But somewhere along the way something went terribly wrong. Some marketing genius figured, why not just create an expensive label? Sell jeans as expensive as Levi's without bothering with the quality to make an even bigger profit. That worked well -- for them. Indeed, a lot of consumers were bamboozled into thinking that expensive natu...

This youtube video wouldn't bother me so much, except for the fact that it has gotten 14 million views (to date). This is really sad.

It is only because I love San Miguel Pale Pilsen too much, and I do not want it to suffer the same fate as my other love, Winston Reds, that I am doing this for free. If someone can get the word out, and pass the message to the people at McCann Erickson (are they still handling San Miguel?), please do so. Product positioning. I heard that San Miguel Pale Pilsen has been suffering in sales in recent years. The reason why it is getting harder and harder to find it in the cheaper carinderia cum restobars (my favorite hangout). The younger consumers think San Miguel Pale Pilsen is "daddy's beer". That McCann would "idiotly" (if that is even an adverb) continue with the "isang platitong mani" ads, which is Bay Elorde vintage, does not help. What are you thinking? The joke was funny the first few times. It is no longer funny now. Come up with new material. You are not getting paid to just re-state the same thing over and over again. My take on ...

I had all my IDs stolen last Friday, including my ATM and driver's license. Started the process of getting  my life online just this Monday. Borrowed some cash from my boss, and started applying for a new license. I got my driver's license (with better picture, lol) this morning. Went straight to BPI and their teller tells me I will get my replacement ATM by Monday. Alright, I lost 1 week and maybe 10-12 thousand pesos all in all. Not bad. It could've been much  much worse. I just love it when the people who are supposed to serve you actually do serve you. So thank you Land Transportation Office (Sucat Branch) and Bank of the Philippine Islands. Thank you for your efficient and hassle free service.

“Thank you Globe for your efficient service.” this is how I began my text message to Globe’s customer service (211). I am hoping that since it is the first few words that appear as a snippet (even before you open the entire message), the customer service person on the other side of the great digital chasm will actually give my text message a once over. And I continued, “I've been trying to register SuperSurf50 since 8:00 am. It is now 4:00 pm. I've literally tried no less than 100 times. Hindi pa rin ma-process ang aking request. Anaknang... ang galing nyo talaga. Thank you ha?” I wanted to be a little more brutal than that. Throw my weight around a little. I am a blogger gadamnit! I am the Main Mungo Conspirator, don’t you know that?  But as I have earlier checked in a net café my current standing in Topblogs, I find that “Chorva” has once again overtaken me and “Mungo Conspiracy” is once again languishing ranked 66th in the middle of page 2 of Topblogs’ humor listing...