Why, Kris?

June 11

Saw Pinoy Pingo Night; couldn’t take my eyes off the screen.  I was captivated by the walking, gesticulating and screeching exclamation point – or was it a letter opener – onscreen.

*Pictures taken with a camera phone during the airing of Pinoy Bingo Night

Another said Kris’ gown made her look like a bowling pin.  I say it also made her look like a Kaminoan – the people who cloned the bounty hunter in Star Wars.

Kaminoan image taken from ComicVine.com

The next night (or was it the night after that), I saw Pinoy Bingo Night in passing once again.  This time, Kris was wearing a yellow gown adorned with yellow flowers (exactly the same shade as the gown).

Did Kris’ fashion sense hit the roof then go into a coma?  Is it suffering from amnesia?  Surely, this can be the only explanation why the usually glam and well-dressed Kris appeared in really hideous gowns in two (consecutive?) nights .   Generally, I do not care what Kris wears; I’m not even into fashion.  The gowns were just sooo bad I had to write about them; otherwise, their images will slowly burn a hole in that little pocket of my mind where I have stored them.

On a positive note, Kris has lost weight and she’s looking great (bar the gown).

UP Diliman Adventures

I had quite a day on the 4th of June when I went to UPD.

The Cell Phone

I was rushing to my lunch date (Jabu, it’s with my sister!) when a black thingy on the ground caught my eye. I looked closer at the “black thingy” and saw that it looked like a cell phone in a black felt case. I looked even closer (my nose was almost touching the “black thingy”) and was even more convinced it was a cell phone. I did not take that thing out of its case to confirm that it was a cell phone. I did not want to put my fingerprints all over it in case it ended up under the scrutiny of Horatio in CSI.

Shame, shame. Even after I was 90% sure that it was indeed a cell phone, I had to think about what I should do. I thought, “Should I or should I not?”

You have a dirty mind. I was not thinking about taking off with it. What I was uncertain about was whether I should pick it up and bring it to the Student Affairs Office (where Lost items eventually Find their way) or I should walk on, forget about the cell phone and leave it for a real Girl Scout to deal with.

Unfortunately, my conscience got the better of me (so I was reaaalllly late for lunch).  I picked up the case – only two fingers were touching it and I held it around 6 inches away from my body – and brought it to the Lost and Found.  I had to fill in my name and contact info; I hated that.  The person in charge said I had to leave my name and phone number there in case the owner wanted to contact me to say thanks.

Note to the cell phone owner:

I swear, I did not take it; I was just the unlucky person who found it and was reaaallly late for lunch because I had to be a Girl Scout and submit it to the Lost and Found desk.  If you want to thank me, I take Visa and Mastercard.

The Shoelaces

My day of good deeds was not over.  I saved a guy from tripping.  Well, not exactly, but it all amounts to the same thing.

I was walking along the Oval then when I noticed, walking ahead of me, this guy with a very cool head of hair. So I was admiring this guy – I looked at him from the top of his head to the heels of his shoes (I was looking at him from behind, you understand) – when I noticed his untied shoelaces.   I so pitied the shoelaces that I caught up with the guy and told him about his poor shoelaces.  So there – because I told him about his untied shoelaces, he did not trip, which he might have done if his untied shoelaces were left unattended.  Another good deed accomplished!

Well, actually, it was not pure altruism on my part.  I had two ulterior motives.  I was tired of his back and wanted to see how he looked like from the front, and I wanted to stall him so I can go past him; I was in a hurry and he was hogging the way.

Directions

I waited for my sister at the shed in front of Vinzon’s.  In the 5 minutes I was there, I was asked for directions to NSO and the Pantranco jeepney stop.  Back in CSSP, someone asked me if I knew which room was designated for SEA enlistment, and a couple of kids asked me where DLRC is.

What’s up with these people?  Do I have a sign on my forehead that says: “Lost?  Let me help you find your way.” Even the cell phone begged me (quietly) to take it to the Lost and Found desk.

I probably know the university like the back of my hand, I’ll grant you that, but newsflash:  my mental image of UP Diliman is 6 years old. A lot of changes have occurred since then.  In my short jaunts back to the motherland (i.e. UPD), I didn’t really go round and round the place just so I could “update” my mental map.  Oh, that ravine is new.  Let me upload that image to my brain just in case a hapless freshie asks me about it the next time I’m here.

Note to the freshies and lost people of UPD:

If you’re going to ask someone for directions, ask someone who looks old enough to be an upperclassman, but don’t waste your time on someone who looks like her student number belongs to the last century (i.e. 1900s).  Either he’s MRR in MA or PhD and hasn’t really been staying in the university (otherwise, he’d have finished his thesis, wrote his paper, sat his compre, and graduated) or he is a parent/sibling of a freshie.  In either case, it would be the blind (or nearly blind) leading the blind.

Absurdly Detailed Instructions

I am addicted to Gardenia Wheat Bread.  There’s just one thing I find absurd about it:  the instructions.

I know, I know.  Gardenia’s goal is to impart information.  This bread company is so proud of its G-Lock (in all fairness, the G-Lock does keep bread fresh until the stated Best Before Date) so perhaps Gardenia wants to emphasize how unique the G-Lock is by making it seem like using the G-Lock is quantum physics.  I mean, come on!  Do you really need specific instructions on how to use that plastic chip clasp with a fancy name (i.e. G-Lock)?

The specific instructions currently escape me (and I don’t have an empty Gardenia Wheat Bread bag handy), but here is what I remember of them.

Factual note:  The instructions are not really numbered; they are in a paragraph format.  Nevertheless, there are two boxes of instructions on a Gardenia Wheat Bread pack; there is one on how to open the pack and another one on how to close the pack.  There’s a third box tells us what the G-Lock color indicates and what we can find printed on it.

To Open:

1. Twist the top of the plastic bag
2. Put two fingers underneath the G-Lock, one finger under each of the G-Lock “plates” (I use plates for lack of a better term)
3. Push the G-Lock with your fingers up the neck of the bag
4. Slide the lock off the neck of the plastic bag

To Close

1. Twist the top of the plastic bag
2. Put one finger on each of the two sides of the G-Lock (the fingers are positioned at the outer sides of the G-Lock, this time; simply put, hold the G-Lock with two fingers)
3. Slide the G-Lock down the neck of the plastic bag (that’s the twisted part of the plastic bag) with a downward, inward motion.
4. Slip the lock into place (that means the two ends of the clasp or the lock must be touching each other).

Goodness gracious!  If Gardenia does not expect its target consumers to understand how to open and close a simple albeit proprietary bread lock, how does this company expect these consumers to want wheat bread or other Gardenia bread variants in the first place?  You must admit that Gardenia is rather overpriced; its target customers therefore consist of those who are willing to pay a premium for quality bread (or what they perceive to be quality bread, anyway).  Is it such an improbability that these people will know how to use the G-Lock without the absurdly detailed instructions?

I, for one, don’t follow these instructions to the letter.  I don’t usually twist the neck of the bag whenever I’m removing a G-Lock.  I don’t always push the lock up and off the plastic bag; I sometimes simply take the two ends, open the lock a bit and slide the plastic bag out.  I also don’t recall pushing the G-Lock in a “downward and inward motion” just so I can close the bag: I just put it on the bag in whatever way seems good at the moment, and I just force the ends of the G-Lock together when I’m done.

Now, does my “disobedience” have any effect on the quality of my Gardenia Wheat Bread?  Nope!  Did my bread grow moldy, become bland-tasting (some people are of the opinion that it is already bland to start with), turn to dust, or transform into Decepticons because I did not open or close the G-Lock “properly?”  Of course not!  So again, my question is, why the absurdly detailed instructions?

I also have a problem with the third box of information (fine, not really a “problem” as all my rants on this post are not truly major issues).  It is quite obvious that the date printed on the G-Lock is the Best Before Date.  Anyone with eyes and a brain can see and understand what “Best B4″  followed by a date means, so do you really need to explain this in the third box?  The color coding system needs a detailed explanation but, ironically, the Gardenia bread packs lack that.  Instead of explaining what specific G-Lock colors mean, the third box contains cryptic information that merely says a color corresponds to the day the bread was delivered.

If you’re a first-time Gardenia buyer who buys a pack with a green plastic lock, you’ll know from the third box of information that the color means it was delivered on a specific day; however, you won’t know which day it was exactly unless you do some research or ask the store personnel about it.  In contrast, will you know how to open and close the G-Lock without the instructions written on the bag?  Absolutely!

Is it really sensible to include absurdly detailed explanations on how to open and close a Gardenia plastic bag  when people can instantly figure that one out for themselves?  Is it really sensible to exclude specific product information that people won’t intuitively figure out?  The answer to both questions is No, but Gardenia apparently insists on explaining the obvious and excluding the actually important information.

Peace Gardenia!  I still love your bread.  I just find the instructions on the bread bag a bit absurd (that’s what I have been repeatedly saying on this post, so that’s kinda repeating the obvious, he he he).

Signs Gone Wrong

Some signs go wrong (or right depending on how you look at things). Three such signs follow:

1)  We were driving around Binakayan (in Cavite) when Tita Niña called our attention to a sign in a car service center that said,

Customers not allowed inside.

I think potential customers would like to reply,

Customers don’t want to go inside.

2)  Tita Niña’s husband then told us about a sign that he saw on a highway.  There was some road widening going on and the sign was put up as some sort of public warning (so that motorists will understand the heavy traffic, I suppose).  The sign stated,

Slow

Men at work

Oh, yes.  I’m sure the motorists now understand why there’s heavy traffic in the area.  It’s not truly because of the construction work going on but the “slow men” who are doing the work, he he he.

3.  This is a retelling of a previous story.  There was a boarding house in Caloocan.  The landlord or landlady is looking for new boarders, but his/her sign indicated something else entirely.  The sign said,

Wanted

Lady Bedspacer

For Rent

Wow!  The landlord/landlady is not looking for a mere boarder but a lady he or she could rent, he he he.

Moral of the story:  Syntax is important – really.

Love Letter Dedication

V , who is the minder of the store downstairs, got a love letter today.  It’s a for-real, “I Love You” love letter.  A lady who lived accross the street gave it to him.  From what I was able to gather, this lady has long been sending languishing looks V’s way.  They got to talking yesterday and exchanged cell phone numbers.  V sent her a text message yesterday evening, and she gave V a love letter this morning.  Fast worker, eh?

The love letter was typical of high school (and perhaps elementary school) love letters.  It was written on a piece of ruled, loose leaf paper and folded into an intricate pattern.  It was also full of text shortcuts (kasi has become “kac,” etc.)  I won’t reproduce the letter here, but here’s its gist:

I’m sorry for not texting back; I had no load (airtime credit).  I am writing this letter today because I don’t want you to think that I’m ignoring your text messages.  Thanks for texting me; I appreciate your messages.   I’m sorry for my “ugly” penmanship; I’m ugly anyway.

The body of the letter is entertaining to read, no doubt.  However, the dedications part (written in a different orientation from the main letter) is even funnier. 

[vocabulary note: the term "dedication"  in this context refers to a short, memorable rhyme; plural is dedications]

One of the dedications has been taken up by the resident leprechaun in my brain; he has been chanting it on and off  the whole day long.   This particular dedication follows:

Ang sulat kong pangit

Itago ng pilit

Kapag ito’y napunit

Ikaw ang kapalit

O, di ba?  Winner!  Sa’n ka pa! 

 

*[English translation]

My ugly letter

Do keep

If you tear it

You’ll replace it