lv – BRYOLOGUE

Bye, Bye March!

March 31, 2013bryologue Leave a Comment

It’s Easter today and my mother was very kind enough to give me a rack for my bags. She thought my room could have a bit of organization with all of my bags in a single place. Well, it was very sweet but I still have some of my bags inside a plastic container. The rack just won’t hold up all of them. I’m in the process of selling some of them off on Ebay, together with the other things I managed to sell internationally.

After lunch, I went to the Marikina Public Market to buy materials I would be needing to ship the items. I found everything perfectly fine, except for some bubble wrap. The ones I found were on a ready-made padded envelope, and I was thinking more of the ones sold per yard. I will most probably be going to National Bookstore tomorrow to buy them, before heading to the Makati Post Office.

When I got home, I was really cautious not to further wrinkle the felt cloth that I’ve bought. I managed to get two kinds of cloth: the white one for the Ebay items and the black one for my own bags. I’ve been hoping to make dust bags for some of them, because they had none when I first bought them online. I was really happy I bought my mother a sewing machine because, ahem, I would no longer have to hand sew a lot of things, which I painstakingly did for a dust bag of an extra large tote bag. =D

Save for minor interruptions, I had no trouble with the Brother BM-2600 sewing machine and I was able to sew eight white felt cloth containers in just an hour. I was only able to use about half of the three yards I bought and I have honestly miscalculated because two of the garments need dust bags with the same capacity as the others. I still don’t know how they would hold up during the shipping, so I really need to buy bubble wrap to make sure they will arrive fine to the buyers. The last time I have shipped internationally, it was for two Gucci bags bound for Australia and the buyer got them within four working days. I am honestly very nervous of this new venture but I know deep inside that I have to get over my fear of international shipping if I were to successfully sell globally.

As for the black ones, they took a much longer time to be made because I had to attach velcro to make sure they would snugly close. I only managed to make two, which were for the ‘quite sensitive’ to humidity bags. The one for the Mulberry was not perfect, but it was still acceptable; but for the Coach one, the dust bag fits like a glove. =D If I have more time next week, I will be doing more for my other bags.

On a different note, it was bittersweet seeing the buyers send the payment to my PayPal account. A lot of them has sent payment within the day, but since I’m a new seller on Ebay.com, PayPal would have to hold my funds for 21 days. What does it mean to me? It means that I would have to shoulder first the shipping of all the items tomorrow and hope to the highest heavens that the buyers will like the item because I don’t want to be traumatized this early. Oh well, at least most of the items got sold and I will hopefully get a good selling history soon. Patience. Be good to me April, my birthday month! =D

What a way to start my week

December 3, 2012bryologue 1 Comment

I was already running later for my errands today and Mon and I even had a little argument over my supposed schedule. I was just being my stubborn self again and refused to admit that I miscalculated my time and even went on with my one hour of exercise, instead of leaving early to go to the bank. Anyway, this small squabble was finished in less than thirty minutes and we were already laughing our heads off over how silly we were. The weather was quite unpredictable, so I thought of testing this pair of Red Wing boots for the first time:

So off to BPI in KPMG Building I went, input some detail and took a number. But it took me forever before my number got called, and to make matters worse, the teller just informed me right there and then that their system was offline and I had to manually fill out two sets of transaction slips, which they will process once the system was okay again. So that was causing the delay. I couldn’t understand why they did not bother telling the people right away (I mean there were really LOTS of people waiting) and handed out transaction slips for us to manually accomplish, instead of telling every person approaching the counter to do so. Very efficient. Anyway, I ended up with an “OFFLINE VALIDATED” slip and off to the office I rushed.

Before reaching the elevator, I asked another BPI branch by the ground floor of our building if the system was already online. I was informed that it just went running again a few minutes back. I hurried upstairs and called the other branch to ask if they have already processed my two transactions. It turned out, the teller gave me the wrong telephone number. I also had a second glance at the transaction slip and she had wrongly written a digit in the account number. I had no choice but to walk back again to their building and ask her about it. Mon went with me this time and I was swearing a lot on our way. Mon looked nervous because he probably thought that I might be having a fit, but I calmly approached the teller and asked her about what happened. I was actually surprised about my reaction because I would normally lash out but I began thinking few weeks back that I should really learn to control my temper. The only downside, though, was Mon becoming my unintentional shock-absorber of my cussing fit.

So what made me really determined to have that transaction completed? It was because I was paying for a (yet again) Burberry leather messenger bag I bought online, from the same seller who sold me the LV Epi Noir Pochette Cles. She was extremely nice and easy to talk with. Besides, it will be my first ever Burberry and I love the fact that it is leather and not canvas! I already accepted the fact that I might not receive it tomorrow but I was surprised when the seller was able to ship it as she reached the cut-off. The bag in question will arrive tomorrow. A big thank you to her.

Of course, it might initially seem that I was out spending on another bag again but the truth was, I had to let go of another bag, the Hermès Fourre Tout I bought almost three months ago. I liked it but I never really got the chance to use it and it was only my sister who had the chance to take it out on my nephew’s birthday (as a diaper bag!). In the process of selling it, I ended up guilt-free because it was sold at a price more than the cost of the Burberry messenger, which did not leave me with less resources. I just looked at it as a trade and this bag deserves another person who will lovingly use it.

I know it will be quite hard for me to just kick off my habit of looking into having another bag, but I have learned that the first step of just selling the things I don’t use clearly leads the way to a better spending habit. More or less, I end up with a new bag with extra money to spare. The ultimate goal, however, was to extremely minimize my bags to just a little over six or make it seven. =P I know I’ll get there someday, one step at a time. Who knows, maybe before 2013 ends, that goal has been already achieved.

P.S.
Today marks my 5th year at work! Also, the birthday of Lolo Dada (paternal grandfather — R.I.P. Lolo) and Mon’s maternal grandmother, who we fondly call as Lola Groovy. =)

BIG BANG ALIVE TOUR 2012 (MANILA) POST!!!

October 25, 2012bryologue 4 Comments

So yesterday, I had a fantastic day with Mon, Lot (his sister) and Faye. We initially intended to go to Music Bank in Diosdado Macapagal Avenue at around 2:00 PM, but remembered that it will not open until 3:00 PM. We then ate first in Sol Restaurant, few meters away from Music Bank, as we will definitely have a hard time eating a proper meal during the concert. There were few people in the restaurant and all of them were Koreans having, presumably, their late lunch.

So at around 3:30 PM, we finally went inside Music Bank and started singing our hearts out. We had a little hard time looking for some of the KPop songs we would like to sing, but we got there in the end. We spent around two hours, while we were slowly frozen to death by the airconditioning. By the time we got out, I have already developed a runny nose; though I didn’t know if that was because of the room’s temperature or Faye’s virus finally contaminating me (she was not feeling well since Monday). LOL

We didn’t actually know if it was a good idea to go to a noraebang before going to a concert, because we would most likely be losing our voice. But we still have a couple of hours to compose ourselves before the mayhem in The Arena. When we got in the Mall of Asia, we saw this crowd at the back of the venue:

We were to enter in the Coral (Blue) Entrance and there were already a lot of people queuing for the mandatory bag inspection. We did not immediately fall in line because I wanted to make sure that I can sneak my point-and-shoot camera inside. I just observed how the inspection was done and I saw a couple of DSLRs and even point-and-shoots were confiscated by the guards on duty. So I just shoved it deep inside the side pocket of my bag, covered in unused tissue and with my iPod on the top so the guards would immediately see I had nothing to hide. Well it worked but we did not take pictures until we were finally seated in our respective seats.

We were seated in Section 401, which was directly in front of the stage. One of our tickets was in Section 404, but as the person who was to sit next to us did not arrive (or the people, because seat numbers four to seven were vacant), there was no need to push through with our original plan of snatching that one seat.

(We haven’t seen any light stick similar to Faye’s <3 We bought this from the souvenir shop in Doota Mall last year)

And then the concert started! After the curtains fell, the boys were revealed to be inside these illuminated tubes, as if teleported from somewhere.

I did my best with what my camera can do and I noticed that it was far easier and better to take videos, as my hands were not that stable to take photos in low lighting. I managed to take several videos, but bothered only in resizing three of them. I also have uploaded the first one in my previous post. And also, I was not screaming like a banshee in these videos (unlike the 2NE1 videos I took, where I was screaming Bom’s name like it will lead me to salvation). (*Note: Change the quality to “480p” ([in the gear icon above] to view the best quality)

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9fZyedMYS-8&feature=plcp]

Big Bang Alive Tour 2012 Manila – Fantastic Baby

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xdbh1rK45_A&feature=plcp]

Big Bang Alive Tour 2012 Manila – Haru Haru

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rJJp3YdpNns&feature=plcp]

Big Bang Alive Tour 2012 Manila – Lies

If I have to be perfectly honest with the whole experience, I sat during most of the middle of the concert because: a) I did not know the songs they were singing, and b) I was really too low-energy (a.k.a. old) to match the energy of the people around me. However, the line-up of the songs was perfectly-made that I cannot NOT stand up and sing along with the songs I knew and loved (e.g. the songs I recorded above). LOL My mental discography was very archaic and I was stuck in Big Bang circa 2008-2009.

At Php 3,900, we got our money’s worth. =D Compared to the three-thousand plus we shelled out in that joke/milk-the-opportunity strategy called “The Party” last year, Big Bang’s first concert here in Manila was very good, production-wise. Although it was apparent that most of the boys gave a very vocally lackluster performance (Tae Yang’s voice was cracking, and as how Sharon Needles put it, he was Christina-ing it out a lot; and GD seemed to have quite a lower energy). Daesung was the most consistent among the boys and I have new respect for him because of that. There were also a lot of Roselle-Nava-sing-with-me moments, which I didn’t like. =/

Another theory given by our friend China (who had to brave the fiasco at the topmost seats, along with two other people), was that GD sensed the overwhelming bias of the crowd towards T.O.P. and he was already resigned over that fact. LOL I didn’t even know how factual that theory was but I think that he still gave a decent job, albeit the low energy. Also, we were wondering why he did not perform his latest single, Crayon (whose video shown before the concert even started has sent the crowd to a shrieking frenzy). But I was extremely envious of his Givenchy Rotweiler shirt. Ugh. LOL

Naturally, we were hungry after the event but as almost all the establishments were closed by 10:30 PM (the show ran few minutes over two hours), we did not even bother eating a snack. We actually had the choice of going to McDonald’s but it was jam-packed, so we decided to just part ways. The rain also did not help. I forgot to bring an umbrella and I just had a gray cardigan inside. As I was more worried of the vachetta parts onn my backpack, more than myself getting wet, I just buttoned it around my bag, liek a new-born baby. I didn’t want any watermarks to ruin the leather. LOL

We’ve heard that SNSD (or some other group from SM Entertainment) will be going to Manila next year. Lot is one BIG SNSD FAN and she will most likely watch their concert, if ever they would organize one. But as the light sticks are probably insanely marked up here, we will be just buying some in Seoul this December when we go back. I might even buy a few more just to sell when that happy day comes. LOL

Looking forward to seeing bag heaven: the Simone Handbag Museum

October 22, 2012bryologue 1 Comment

Mon and are currently drafting our itinerary for our trip to Seoul this December, and we both agree that there will be no palace tour. We have only visited two of the Five Grand Palaces in Seoul built during the Joseon Dynasty (i.e. Gyeongbokgung and Changdeokgung, the latter was very near the place we stayed in), but we think that we have seen enough. =) We also agreed on Nami Island and Neverland because we did not see those places during our last visit. But one MAJOR destination, at least for me, to be visited will be the recently-built museum in the Gangnam area: the Simone Handbag Museum. It is NOT normally what tourists tend to visit and flock over, but as a person who loves bags, I really want to check it out.

(Photo from http://simonehandbagmuseum.co.kr/collection.php)

Visiting this place is non-negotiable, even if we have to walk quite a distance just to reach the place. the admission fee is 5,000 won, which isn’t bad at all, given that I will have the chance to see interestingly crafted bags way back from 16th century until contemporary period. And speaking of the more recent period, any bag lover can immediately identify wonderful pieces from “The Collection” page from their website. You can see the McQueen Union Jack clutch, a Kelly and a Birkin, a Fendi baguette (hello Carrie!), a Gucci bamboo top-handle, a vintage Moschino dripping chocolate, a Chanel Cambon tote, a Prada nylon backpack, Louis Vuitton bags, Missoni, Céline and Ferragamo.

But the question is, when can we squeeze the time to visit it? I proposed visiting the museum on our first day, mere hours after we landed, but I guess Mon won’t be too happy to go straight away to Apgujeong just to visit it. LOL But this time, I won’t be leaving Seoul without buying a bag. I’ve been wanting a canvas and/or leather backpack with a style similar to the one below, and as this type of bag looks popular in Seoul now, I will definitely look for one.

(Photo from upashion.com)

Update:

I finally got to visit Simone Handbag Museum last December 2012! See my entry about it here:

https://bryologue.com/2013/01/17/winter-in-seoul-2012-day-4-simone-handbag-museum/

My lucky nephew

October 19, 2012bryologue 2 Comments

Earlier, our company had a Family Day and I tagged along my nephew. Mon, on the other hand, brought his mom and youngest sister with him, Anne. It would normally be a Halloween Party but they decided to shake things up a little and make it a different event. The last time JB and Anne saw each other was two years ago, also on our company’s Halloween event where my nephew dressed up as Wilderness Explorer Russell from Disney’s ‘UP’, while Anne went Hawaiian for ‘Lilo & Stitch’.

Halloween Party two years ago - Anne and JB doing their best Disney

I have to admit, I missed making a costume for my nephew, especially on how I have painstakingly made and researched every little detail on that Russell outfit:

But one good thing that this lack of costume brought to me was the less opportunity to stress over what he would wear. It was just come-as-you-are and leave-your-kids-with us, so Mon and I were able to just go around the area, while the kids do their stuff.

They had several activities: tour of all the work areas, safety demonstration, singing and arts. They were able to get lots of candies and freebies, but compared to the previous years, a Halloween party would still be better.

They were to raffle off prizes and I was hoping that my nephew’s name gets picked for the tickets to the Mind Museum. But ‘lo and behold! He was called as second to the last person for the prize! I was really happy because I’ve been wanting to go to the Mind Museum in Taguig City because it is supposedly a kick-ass science museum! We now have to pay just for two people but it wasn’t bad at all. =D

I was never lucky with raffles or games of luck since I was a kid. There was even an instance during a Christmas paryt of a church where they gave out prizes to everyone as long as there were gifts on the table. Unlucky me had to be the last name in the fish bowl and there were no more prizes left. That cemented my reputation of being unfortunate to games of luck. Since then, I’ve never been a believer of luck but hard work. LOL Good thing he did not inherit my raffle luck but my older brother’s. When we were kids and up until now, he’d get picked in raffles to win a complete set of G.I. Joe toys, house appliances and even an iPad. Ugh.

Now we have to schedule a date to visit the museum. Their website states that kids below two feet have free admission. I was under the impression that my niece, Brie, was still under two feet. But alas! She’s almost three feet! The kids are really growing up so fast and I feel old. We will most probably visit the museum by the first or second week of November. =D

I’m also that abysmally delinquent!

October 16, 2012bryologue Leave a Comment

Last July 24, I was exasperated over the two books that were not returned on time by the person who had borrowed them (which turned out to be a classmate of mine). But now, the due date of these books that I borrowed were on August 9, 2012 but I only had the sense to return them earlier. Last week, I saw a post of a classmate thinking out loud whether the library checks on people who borrowed books, if they were still alive because the ones that she needed were still not yet returned. I have a nagging feeling that she was looking for these two books — of course I did not reply to her status. >_<

So before going to work, I went to the library to FINALLY return them. I paid Php 90 pesos per book, for a total of Php 180. In UP, they charge Php 2.00 per day for regular circulation books, but it costs higher for reserved titles.

I just realized that it will be the last time that I’d be entering this library, well hopefully. I’m optimistic over the results of my comprehensive examinations and after this semester, there’s no point in enlisting for residency with library use.

As I was carrying books, I just brought this little sling bag. But it was surprisingly spacious as I was able to fit in a lonn wallet, a pouch full of trinkets, my IDs, iPod, a digital camera, an agenda, keys with lanyard, a USB flashdrive and an umbrella. This is actually Hermione Granger’s handbag. LOL I can’t remember when was the last time I used such a small bag to work; but carrying a convenient bag was, after all, liberating. My shoulders and arms were briskly thanking me.

After leaving the library, I was surprised to see Tin rushing towards my direction. She was on her way to submit her term paper to one of her professors, and as I found out, she’s still trying to finish another paper for her 299 class. Well, I’m not going to pretend that I miss all the rush of beating the clock when the semester ends, but it made me wonder what should I be doing next. I went to graduate school in 2009 due to the sheer interest of learning new things. And now that I’m about to finish it, what’s next?

My first backpack in years

October 14, 2012bryologue 4 Comments

If you take a look at the things I own, you can immediately identify the absence of a backpack. But why on earth I didn’t have one? It was a very interesting story because I used to be backpack-only type of guy — well that was when I was in grade school until college.

The last backpack I owned was this red Nike backpack (which I dug out of the bowels of my closet for picture’s sake. It literally has cobwebs on the bottom):

It was what I used to carry because I also had everyday training and it was very easy on the shoulders for the weight was pretty much distributed evenly. Unfortunately, when I was on my way back to UP for training with the squad and as I passed by Philcoa, a little, dirty girl stood in front of me and grab my legs. I was of course taken aback and was trying to get out of her embrace. A few seconds after when I was about to pay the jeepney back to Aldaba Hall, I’ve noticed that the front pocket was open. It felt like being doused with cold water because upon first sight, I knew right away that my cellphone (a Nokia 3230) was stolen. That was my bat signal to curse the backpack for eternity and I have gotten a big, slouchy messenger bag from American Boulevard in SM North a day after.

(Screencap from the movie ‘Hairspray’)

Years went by and I still wasn’t convinced that I needed a backpack. I forever associated it to being prone to stealing because a person is definitely blind when you have the bag at your back. However, when I first saw Tracy (Nikki Blonsky) carrying the leather satchel backpack in the opening sequence of Hairspray, I realized that it might have been time to reconsider having one. I think the one in the movie is similar to the type of bags that Cambridge Satchel does, and I highly doubt if they did not issue a backpack-type. But as I was already disenchanted by the price of a Cambridge Satchel, I was just confronted with the idea of having even just one backpack.

As the old adage goes: NEVER SAY NEVER. First of all, I’ve said before that I’m already growing out of my monogram phase. But can you resist something that suddenly comes up without a warning (i.e. a good deal) for an insanely significant fraction of the retail price? When the Louis Vuitton Montsouris GM backpack was initially released, it was sold at US$ 1,300. I see that a lot of online sellers selling it at an average of US$ 500 (and Luxury Exchange even sold one for US$ 910!) Can you fault me for getting it in a snap because the seller offered it to me for an extremely reasonable price? 😉 I bet you would even beat me to it if you can!

(Photo from Fashionphile)

My knowledge of Louis Vuitton, albeit limited, is sufficient, especially when it comes to monogram canvas and epi leather. However, I will not assume that I know a lot so even when I was inspecting the bag, I was secretly Google-ing “Montsouris GM” because I was not really sure if the style in that size was made. The initial search results was of Kanye West carrying the same bag from Fashionphile. Okay so the style do exist, but I needed to inspect every hardware, date code and heatstamp to make sure that everything was okay.

I still cannot believe that I got a good deal for this bag! Of course, it was not perfect, with minor issues such as that ‘stain’ near the heatstamp by the back, and I had to clean some parts of the canvas with a damp cloth, but nevertheless it was in excellent condition. What bothers me the most, however, was the amount of vachetta the bag has, especially at the bottom. I never owned anything that has this much vachetta, and I’m afraid that it might get ruined under my clumsy hands.

I’m only 5’6″ and the bag doesn’t look small, so that’s a good thing. But Mon and I agree that he’s going to use it for our trip back to Seoul. (Yes, I can’t stop talking about our Seoul trip because I’m extremely excited!) As much as I want to use it there, I’d just stick with a messenger because I’ll be most comfortable with it than this bag that I’m still not used to. =)

So this is how you pack a Keepall!

October 8, 2012bryologue 1 Comment

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ta9INf-ZBJk]

Three months ago, I ruminated over selling my Keepall 50 for a Mulberry Bayswater. But turned out, I ended up NOT selling it at all. I told myself “How dare you consider letting this go, after all of those memories?“. However, for our Seoul trip this December, I actually consider not using the bag because I might have excessively packed it last year and remembered that it was extremely heavy, considering it has no shoulder straps.

(Screencap from www.louisvuitton.com)

I then found myself on Louis Vuitton’s website because I was looking at the dimensions of an Epi Cles as I saw one listed on Ebay (I still can’t get over my lost/stolen coin purse). Then I stumbled upon this interesting and interactive tutorial on the “Art of Packing“. First of all, it never occurred to me that you can position your shoes like that inside a keepall or any travelling bag. I had a constant mental “Ooooohhh” while watching the video and picked up a few tricks while the invisible hand (definitely not of Adam Smith) place an item after another inside the bag. Just as I thought that the usual rolling up of the clothes to avoid crease does the trick, I saw this tutorial which proved to be helpful in packing things for travel.

But then again, my Keepall still doesn’t have a strap but I will be taking note of the tips in the video when I pack another bag I can sling over my shoulder.