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.
No idea how long this water outage will last. The water company posted this today:
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.
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.
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:
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:
And that’s all I’ve got for today. It’s pouring down rain again, but beer o’clock will not be denied!