Pagers, Beepers From Not Too Long Ago

Do you still remember this mobile fashion accessory from the past? This thingy was clamped on the belt or pocket of professionals, doctors, politicians, celebrities and college students to keep them wirelessly informed of whoever wants to contact them.

Let's take one last look at these old beepers or pagers from the nineties. The popular brands in the Philippines were EasyCall and PocketBell.

Do you remember calling the pager number of someone you need to contact then being answered personally by an operator asking you what message you want to tell someone? With a perfect stranger jotting down your message so that it can be sent to the pager of someone you know, it was awkward sending corny love messages or private stuffs to them. Replying is also not possible. You have to pick up a land-line phone and call the your friend's pager or land-line phone.

Let's energize two old Motorola pagers using one AAA battery each.

Turning on the pagers in the year 2008 greets you with the same loud beep-beep-beep as the pagers wake up from its long slumber. After setting the time and date, here is how the display looks like. Some dots of the LCD display are already dead. But aside from that, all functions are OK including the vibrating alert. But any old messages it kept before were now lost.

February 2008: No signal

Easycall started its paging service in the Philippines in 1988 and reached its peak in the nineties and had 250,000 subscribers by the end of 1995 with coverage reaching all of Manila and its neighboring provinces, Baguio, La Union, Pangasinan, Bataan, Pampanga, Iloilo, Bacolod, Cebu, Cagayan de Oro, Zamboanga, General Santos and Davao.

The later part of the nineties turned gray for pagers as the popularity of a new technology called mobile cellular telephony grew steadily in the Philippines. I still remember the old TV Commercial of Globe Telecoms where two speech-disabled lovers were finally able to "talk" to each other using a Globe Handyphone with text messaging capability - a task previously difficult for speech-disabled person using ordinary phones that were only for voice calls. SMS or text messaging also eliminated the "third party stranger" in the message loop thus liberating all of us to send privately anything we want, no matter how corny or how personal it was. My first GSM cellphone was the Nokia 100 with a SIM card the size of a credit card or ATM card and I loved it.

The pager survived crossing the year 2000 but it was already on its decline. Today, nationwide paging using beepers or pagers is dead in the Philippines. These old pagers can only be used as fancy alarm clocks and time keepers from the past but cellular phones and smartphones like the Nokia 6120c are now the king of mobile messaging and much more.

There are still countries where nationwide paging is available. But most of the time, they are used as local paging systems inside hospitals and factories where there is a need to be wirelessly connected but avoid the interference generated by cellular phones to sensitive equipment.
EasyCall Philippines is still existing though they moved on to other services and there are no more beep-beep-beep for the common Pinoy.

Food Picks in Iligan

Here are some food picks when you go to Iligan, Lanao del Norte, Mindanao. A big thanks to Nick and Chic for sharing these food finds.

Lechon Baka (roast beef) of Abetria

You can choose to have it delivered to you roasted, sliced and ready to eat or have it roasted in your own backyard.

Baboy ramo (wild boar) of Hunters

Papait of Hunters

Kilawing Kambing of Hunters

Chinese Kinilaw of Lai Lai

Birthday Pansit of Lai Lai

Beef Brisket of Patio Alejandra

Omiyage from Japan

When you go back home from Japan or if a friend visit's you from there. Here are some of the yummy omiyage or pasalubong that can be bought in Japan airports.

It's a bird! Its a hopia!

When you open the box and unwrap the fine paper wrapping, an adorable, innocent-looking, brown little bird will look you in the eye and tell you silently "please don't eat me." Holding it in you hand is like holding unbaked fine ceramic figurines. Its outer skin is very smooth like those expensive Japanese dolls that are enclosed on glass boxes.

When you bite it and break through the thin, soft skin, your teeth will sink into a finely textured and mildly sweet filling that's just so yummy.

A box of assorted and fancy chocolate.

Each variety tickles your taste in its own way.

The problem is - which one would you eat first?

Buchi

Attractive and yummy looking buchi.

Wanted: Caramel Popcorn

The last time I saw microwaveable caramel popcorn in supermarkets I frequent in Laguna, Cavite and Alabang was a decade and a half ago. Now all I see are butter and cheese flavored popcorn. So when I saw carmel popcorn on a trip to Mexico, I brought home plenty of it and ask my daughter to help me make it.

Warm, crisp popcorn covered with sweet caramel that melts in you mouth. Yummmy!

It takes a few more steps to prepare it than the usual microwave popcorn that you just let pop in the microwave oven then dig in. Once the popping is done, you must remove the unpopped corn kernels then place the pack of caramel wafer on top of the popcorn then microwave it again to let the caramel wafer melt and coat all the popcorn.

Separating the unpopped kernels is important because once the caramel coats an unpopped kernel together with a popped one, eating this popcorn duo might break a weak tooth or two.

My caramel popcorn stock is getting low. Have to find a local store where I can replenish my stocks or head back to Mexico.