Author: elizavictoria

on myBro

Before the move, I asked online what my friends use as their Internet Service Provider, and the answer, overwhelmingly, was PLDT. So J emailed PLDT to apply, and they replied soon enough to say that the address we gave them has a disconnected line, and they do not set up DSLs in residences with disconnected PLDT lines, and if we were new tenants we can show them a notarized Contract of Lease, and then we’ll see.

Basically.

It’s too much work, so we looked for another ISP. JM recommended Smart Canopy, which I learned later is now called myBro Wireless Home Broadband. We’ve been using my Prepaid Smart Bro dongle (heh dongle), and the speed and signal are terrific, so it wouldn’t be disastrous to apply for postpaid. I applied online (I sent them a scanned copy of my passport), and they called literally just minutes after I finished applying. The girl who called me was from Quick Delivery (don’t be weirded out), Smart’s partner for myBro. They said someone will come by the next day to get the cashout (one month payment, currently on promo at PhP 499) and a photocopy of my passport. That’s all they asked, an ID. No Proof of Billing Address or ITR, but I’m not complaining.

Sure enough a rider from Quick Delivery dropped by my office the next day and handed me a receipt and got my payment, and the day after, a team from Smart installed the connection. We had to pay an additional 800 pesos for the wire, and we bought a router (DLink) for under PhP 2k. You may decide not to have a router and just connect directly to your laptop or PC, but we have phones and tablets. Lock-in period for myBro is 24 months.

So there! I do highly recommend them for the painless and fast installation, but please please please check first if the Smart signal is strong and steady in your area.

new things

I received some pahabol Christmas gifts from Visprint last week. Surprised and touched. I love this notebook.

20130111_165504

20130111_165521

Ah, the apartment. It’s an endless work-in-progress. I should stay away from groceries. Got these cute laundry baskets from Rustan’s Shopwise.

20130113_114332

The curtains are from his ma. It fit the earth-toned motif we accidentally got going on.

20130113_114251

And new hair! Of course. My hair was so thick and heavy I decided to have most of them chopped off. Became a mascot for the salon’s Permanent Blowdry service. (“Look at her hair! Ang ganda di ba?”) It was entertaining and weird.

20130113_171551ed

I gave J a link to some easy marinades, and he found one that made the chicken taste…expensive. Haha!

20130113_202450

20130113_202526
“Are you taking a photo?”

The recipe is here. Have fun!

Around midnight we had a McDonald’s craving, but the Globe signal was so bad in our place that the operator couldn’t hear our orders.

So, good job, Globe. You just saved our arteries.

*

PS Watch Archer! It’s been described as Arrested Development meets James Bond. Some familiar AD voices there. (And Jessica Walter voices a character that looks like Lucille Bluth – just look at the photo.) It’s irreverent, and hilarious as hell.

archer1

catherine batac walder reviews ‘the viewless dark’

Originally posted on the Goodreads page of The Viewless Dark:

I didn’t know what to expect when I started reading this, or maybe I did, being familiar with Eliza’s penchant for pleasant surprises. I usually have trouble finishing a story these days but this just kept me reading as soon as I started. As a reader, you are taken on a viewless adventure. You won’t see what’s coming. Eliza Victoria is one kick-ass, readable poet. That is the best compliment I could think of about her prose. The clarity of her writing makes the reader immediately imagine the scenery and immerse herself in the story. The flashbacks didn’t bog down the story, in fact, it just flowed and you hardly notice they were there at all.

This is the kind of book you hesitate to read if you know what some of the themes are earlier on as they make you question things such as personal happiness – even if you’re quite happy and content with your life you begin to ask, is this enough, am I doing enough for others, etc. There’s the question, and the attempt to answer, the mystery of life, and death, but that’s just one area. I wouldn’t really recommend it for reading when you’re feeling depressed. But for the excellent writing alone, I highly recommend this book.

Thank you Catherine! For more information about the book, click here.

‘the mechanic’ is second-favorite story in 2012 (kaleidotrope)

From Kaleidotrope‘s Twitter feed:

According to the poll that ran for all of December, readers had three favorite stories from Kaleidotrope in 2012…
#3: “I Am a Being Under Enchantment” by Patricia Russo
#2: “The Mechanic” by Eliza Victoria
And the readers’ favorite story from Kaleidotrope 2012?
#1 “Commuter Train” by Brady Golden

Thank you voters and readers! And congratulations to Patricia and Brady!

kaleidotrope

a review of ‘a bottle of storm clouds’ from marginalia

Here’s a review from Monique of Marginalia, from the tail-end of 2012:

 

“To sum it up, I immensely enjoyed this book: the stories were well-written, they weren’t predictable, and they involved themes and ideas that are close to home.”

Read the full review here.

goodbye 2012: some leftover love for the past year

Year-Ender

I love blogging because it compensates for my horrible memory. My mother remembers precise details – she knows when she bought the pink curtains, what month each of her children started work – and I’ve always been amazed by that. I’m not good with dates. Thank God for Facebook reminding me about friends’ birthdays.

So! The year that was. I am glad I still found the time to read books. Here’s my Top Ten reads for 2012, as told to Flipside.

I am also grateful to find the time to write, and to find people willing to publish (and read!) my work. Year 2012 saw the publication of three of my books, most recently my short story collection. Plus six poems and six short stories, with several reprints, and various pieces forthcoming.

Highlights:

Leftover Reviews from 2012

The Hobbit

the-hobbit_2409864k

You can feel Peter Jackson’s hands taking both ends of some scenes and just stretching them to justify turning a single relatively slim fantasy book into a trilogy, but Martin Freeman seems born for this role, and the lightheartedness of the adventure is a great foil to Frodo’s Fellowship. That scene where Bilbo Baggins (Freeman) first meets Gollum (Andy Serkis) is chilling and pitch-perfect.

Magic Mike – My brother watched this alone, and he kept wondering, Why did I even watch this alone? It’s entertaining, but I wished the other dancers (aside from Magic Mike and The Kid) are more three-dimensional, and I thought that last kiss was forced.

The Adventures of Tintin – I should have watched this on the big screen. Amazing animation.

John Carter – It could have been a memorable fantasy film, but the filmmakers made the mistake of hiring Tim Riggins. Taylor Kitsch seems perpetually bored, and the moments that are supposed to be comedic fall flat. I was frustrated the whole time I was watching it. Argh.

The Raid: Redemption – (The Indonesian title is The Deadly Raid, or The Raid) An Indonesian action film with brutal, well-choreographed fight scenes. It’s what you get if you jettison most of the dialogue from your favorite action flick. I would have asked for more character depth, but the film knows what it is and what it can give. Take it or leave it.

Night of Hunters

tori-amos-night-of-hunters

I am a fan of Tori Amos. I discovered her in high school when I saw a video of “1000 Oceans”, and I’ve looked for her music ever since. I remember walking home in college, listening for the first time to her debut album Little Earthquakes, and falling in love with “Silent All These Years”. She is inventive, she is a great piano player, and her lyrics are poetry. Night of Hunters contains songs that are variations on pieces by Bach, Chopin, Debussy, but the album also tells a story of a lost love in the time of ancient gods and magic. Her daughter sings as the child guide Annabelle and her niece plays the Fire Muse. The musical interlude in “Star Whisperer” (Variation on Schubert’s Andantino from Piano Sonata in A major, D 959) is heaven, and the anger and fear in “Shattering Sea” (Variation on Alkan’s Song of the Madwoman on the Sea-Shore, Prelude Op. 31, No. 8) is flawless.

I would very much love to see her play live.

Promise

Good health and a healthy weight for 2013. Diet starts now.