Jonesing and it Contents — American-itus at HMR

Confessions are the lifeblood of the overly personal blog — chaff endlessly spewed by the neurotic, maladjusted, and the adolescent alike. I won't descend into ruminations on the saying of things to millions of anonymous strangers.

These confessions seem to be best confined to a state of intoxication wherein inhibitions make way for discussion that should never, under any circumstances happen. The kind of state invited by mixing of too many luke-warm beers with a tasty hard liquor combo like Red Bull and Vodka before switching to a full-bore Tequila massacre, say. The kind of state that ultimately transports you to that maudlin place of hugs and affirming of things that seem terribly important at the time — like your blood brotherhood bond with the guy at the bar next to you (whoever the hell he is), say.

I make my confession hobbled by a brief moment of sobriety (I should get saccharine points for bravery) and it has to do with a uniquely American phenomenon — I call it the Sam's Club effect. It's the pleasure of roaming through rows and rows of stuff that you don't need. It's like the modern reification of the Dutch Master's fascination with abundance. Instead of tables of food we have shelves of consumer goods you didn't know you needed until presented with the opportunity to buy by the pallet-load.

For everyone who doesn't come from the land of George Bush and Kato Caitlin — it's a Kano thing, you wouldn't understand. For the rest of you (and you know who you are), I'm about to provide with the best fix for this kind of thing since PriceMart went out of business.

It's called HMR and it's just around the corner from my place, so it's unusually easy to take a few minutes to roam the isles and see what's available. It's fun, its relaxing, and I often find stuff there I never knew I needed. Actually though, I often find stuff there I knew I needed and I can find it for a reasonable price. Be careful and double check the prices since sometimes they are expensive. To me that just part of the experience though. It makes me feel like a really smart consumer if I can catch the discount place charging a premium.

It's the kind of place that buys all the furniture from hotels redecorating or buys all the copiers from a company upgrading or going out of business. They also buy in bulk from god-knows-where. Everything there is as-is and its heaven for Pentium III severs, 110-volt copiers, hotel safes stacked to the ceiling, left over Halloween décor — you get the idea.

Anyway I'm a house-proud kinda guy (another confession!), but I'm also a guy-guy. So you can just imagine what it's like without a decent grill to prepare large quantities of carcinogenic meats. The challenge has been that I also have an arbitrary number in my head for what I'll pay for a gas grill. Let's say it's more than $100 and less than $250 (and that better be a kick-ass grill). Bear in mind that it seems like all the grills must be imported and thererfore cost more by a factor of 50% over comparable models in the States. Imagine my joy at finding a proper grill at PHP9,500 at HMR (that's around $200) and pretty functional at that. Score one for HMR.

Here's the next score — last week we took a tour of the place for the sake of relaxation and cathartic joy of almost buying something. And found bar stools. Number two in as many weeks for HMR.

I've got a kind of bar island in my kitchen that has been begging for seating for well over a year. I'm slow about purchasing furniture (slurred confession #3). The fact is that guests were forced to pull a kitchen chair over to the counter and dine looking like a 6 year-old at the grown up table. I have this habit of inviting people over to eat and then just cooking the whole time, more or less imposing this indignantly on my guests (imagine now that I'm draped on your shoulder fervently chanting murmuring "I love you man"). So when I ran across some handsome stools purchased in bulk from some nameless factory in Vietnam, I jumped on the change to properly seat my dining companions and be a decent host.

If you're buying stuff (and I mean pretty much anything), especially in bulk, I recommend that you head over to HMR to have a look see. It's a visual feast of stuff of every shape and size. Think of the Finn's junk-filled nest if you are a Neuromancer fan. If you live in Manila, you are by default by the way.

Happy hunting.