Monthly Archives: September 2026

Watered down

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Fuck you, Facebook!

Nothing much to say about my yesterday. We had our driver pick up our freshly showered bodies at the Anbon Hotel and headed into the city for grocery shopping. Stopped by the BPI ATM to withdraw some cash, and my card was rejected. There was a “fraud alert” email from my credit union when I got home, saying the withdrawal was suspicious activity and I needed to contact them to unblock my account. This is the second time they’ve done this in the past month, and it is getting old. I sent a message telling them it was a legit transaction, but so far, no response. It’s a good thing I’ve found an alternate way to transfer funds from my account using Wise. Anyway, that was about as exciting as things got around here.

Still no running water in our subdivision. So, we are flushing toilets and washing with water in buckets.

And this water truck comes by periodically to refill our buckets.
Our replenished water supply.
Bathing and flushing the old-fashioned way.

No idea how long this water outage will last. The water company posted this today:

Seems weird they can’t say when a broken pipe will be repaired. When this happened last year, it took almost two weeks.
Why in the fuck would you lay a water pipe over the river like that anyway?

Meanwhile, there is still plenty of water falling down from the skies. At least it is coming in intermittent showers now, which is helping to reduce the flood issues.

But keeping things in perspective, my complaints are minor comparatively speaking.

We caught a break in the rain when we made our trek into town at beer o’clock. We kicked off our evening at Sloppy Joe’s. Swan saw a gal she knows walking by and invited her in to join us. She used to work on the Arizona floating bar, which is long gone now, but she will be starting to work for the new owner of Champs Sports Bar on Baloy Beach soon. The owner is the same guy who has recently purchased several other bars in town. So, by my count, he now has Whiskey Girl, Crazy Horse, Tryst, Barcelona, Champs, and the soon-to-be reopened Voodoo Bar and General MacArthur’s Bar. That’s more bars than customers in most bars. But if you have more money than sense, why not? It’s been said that the easiest way to become a millionaire in the Philippines is to start with two million. Still, I wish him well. Weather permitting, I may venture out to Baloy tomorrow to see what Champs is like under new management.

We shared a pulled pork sandwich and chicken quesadillas from the Sloppy Joe’s kitchen. I liked the quesadilla best. I also downed six San Miguel Extra Lights (XLs). They go down smooth and easy, and at only 3% alcohol, I wasn’t even buzzed.

And we weren’t done yet. We headed down the road to Queen Victoria for our nightcap. Alas, they were out of the red wine Swan prefers, so she had a Mai Tai cocktail instead. I mentioned to manager Jake that he needed to restock, and he disappeared. Came back about 30 minutes later and said he’d gone to two different markets and couldn’t find any. Wow. It wasn’t my intent for him to do that, but that’s the kind of manager he is. And he wasn’t done yet; he sent his bartender out to another local market to continue the quest for a bottle of wine. Impressive!

I’m, of course, drinking more XL. On Tuesday night, Queen Vic has a “buy two, get one free” deal. When I’d finished my free third beer, Swan still wasn’t done with her first drink, so I ordered another. Then another. And that earned me my second free beer. As crazy as it sounds, I still wasn’t drunk. But I didn’t push my luck and called it a night. Always a good time chatting with Jake and enjoying the Queen Victoria ambiance.

I’ve also noticed that when I’m drinking XLs, I stay out a little later than I usually do. I can only empty a bottle so fast after all. Oddly enough, the residual impact seems to be that I’m sleeping better.

Later to bed, later to rise, but without those long sleep gaps during the night I’d grown accustomed to. My sleep score of 85 was the highest I’ve seen since I began monitoring.

Well, I’m going to have to continue to assess the positive aspects of drinking XL. I’ll let you know how that works out.

From Facebook memories on this day in my history:

Ten years ago, I brought my Korean girlfriend with me on a visit to Barretto. The Filipina bar girls really took a liking to her, and she responded with a generous outpouring of lady drinks. It was fun while it lasted.

From the September 2021 LTG archives, a typical day-in-the-life, including a hike and a barhop. It stands out for me because things I took for granted are no more, like enjoying a chat with the now-deceased Dave Fischer and getting my weekly fix of Korean chicken wings courtesy of John Kim’s The Pub, both of which no longer exist. Life goes on until it doesn’t.

Today’s YouTube is something a little different: why it sucks to be born a Filipino. I think maybe the biggest difference between being born poor here versus in first-world countries is that there are fewer opportunities to escape poverty. I wonder how Dolly Parton would have fared had she been born a Filipina.

Humor time:

Hang up the phone and lose my number,,,
It must have been a monster bill.
Yogi was smarter than the average Berra.

And that’s all I’ve got for today. It’s pouring down rain again, but beer o’clock will not be denied!

Hashing on

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Welcome to the BER months…may your bells be jingled!

Jesus must love Hashers, because when it was time for the Hash to begin yesterday, the rain miraculously stopped and didn’t begin again until all the Hashers were safely back to the On-Home venue at It Doesn’t Matter. I was also surprised that we had a larger turnout than I expected given the foul weather we have been experiencing. Fifteen or so brave souls did the trail, and over thirty showed up for the Hash Circle. I was happy that all the feedback I received about the trail was positive. Even those die-hard Hashers like Leech My Nuggets said they enjoyed the hike. Several others said they were pleasantly surprised that a notorious shortcutter like me had laid such a challenging course (two hill climbs). The ribbon markings proved easy to follow and no one got lost. So, I felt good about doing my part for a successful Hash run.

Providing some guidance before sending the Hashers on their way (another group had left earlier).

We had checked into a room for our overnight stay at the Anbon Hotel. It’s pretty much a shithole, but it facilitated our need to shower, plus it is right across the street from It Doesn’t Matter, so it was a convenient venue to stumble back to after the Hash (we stayed overnight knowing we’d want to shower again this morning). After the Hashers departed, we walked around the corner to Sit-n-Bull and shared a roast beef dip sandwich. Swan went back to the room for a nap, and I went to IDM to welcome the returning Hashers. I was not surprised to see Fast And Loose (a marathoner) finish the 6K trail in just under an hour.

There be a God’s-eye view of yesterday’s Hash trail.
Leech My Nuggets finished third and set about his duties as the Hash Cash guru.
After the trail liquid refreshment time.
A gathering of Hash Gash.
The ice delivery.
Hares on the ice.
It’s nice on ice!
Deflowering a virgin Hasher.
Fat Bastard was this week’s Hashit recipient.
The AI rendering in recognition of achieving the Hashit. Good work, Pubic Head!
A larger-than-usual gathering for the after-Hash at It Doesn’t Matter.
Ain’t they sweet?

It was quite a party at the after-Hash. A couple of Hashers bought rounds of shots for everyone, and then the bar owner reciprocated. Since we were sleeping across the street, we stayed later than usual. Hold onto your hats, I didn’t crawl into bed until a little after 10 p.m. It’s nice to go a little wild sometimes.

From the Facebook memories:

The view from my Gireum-dong apartment fifteen years ago. One life ends, another begins.

It’s September 11 in the 2021 LTG archives, and I pay tribute to the heroes on the 20th anniversary of that horrific terrorist attack. I was working in downtown D.C. that morning, and obviously, it’s a day I’ll never forget. It changed me and my outlook on the world (I’d always voted for Democrats before then). It also put me on the road that eventually led to my employment with the US Army in Korea. Another life-changing event.

Today’s YouTube video explores the reasons the Philippines remains a poor country. I’m not sure you can really fault the Spanish and the Americans. Graft and corruption seem to come naturally to the powerful elite here. I can attest from personal observation that the common folk here may be poor, but they are far from lazy.

Time for a humor break:

Practice, practice, practice!
I’m sure they’ll arrive before this conversation ends.
A crowning moment of futility.

And that’s the way the day went down. It’s been raining off and on today, but nothing like the shit storms we’ve been through these past few weeks. Of course, there’s a typhoon projected to arrive here on Thursday, so hang onto your hats.