Yesterday we ran out of liquefied petroleum gas at home. While I was getting the previous night’s pot of rice warm, our LPG tank breathed its last.

No problemo, I told myself. Just call our favorite LPG dealer, and have one tank delivered to our home as usual. Pronto.

How could have I known that I was about to venture into a quest that could rival those of Indiana Jones, or even those of the Knights of the Round Table.

The adventure started when the usually cheerful store clerk dourly told me they had run out of LPG stocks. And no, they were not hoarding their supply of cooking gas, and if I wanted to, I can come and visit their store and see for myself.

After paying a visit to several gasoline stations and gas retailers, after doing what others would call a post-Christmas Station of the Cross, I and my sons finally stumbled upon a hole-in-the-wall store still selling LPG-filled tanks, whose owners were still to hear of the so-called LPG shortage.

Several of my neighbors, who ran out of cooking gas the same time I did, had similar experience.

Whatever happened to our energy industry regulator’s promise that there would be no hoarding of LPG? And what about our industry players, the gas companies, dealers, wholesalers and their retailers, has the prospect of profiting from the projected increases in prices of cooking gas blinded them to the dire straits their fellowmen are in right now?

Has greed taken its hold on all of us? It is for each of us to find out.

PlayStation 2 Rocks

Did you know that Sony’s nine-year-old game console, the PlayStation 2, continues its bestselling ways in the United States? Last year, Sony sold about 50 million units of PS2 in North America.

The PS2 included a DVD drive when it debuted in 2000, making the game console a trailblazer in those days.

So what makes the PS2 still popular among millions of consumers? Credit goes to Sony’s decision to continue supporting the platform and releasing new game titles that can be played on the PS2.

Mobile Internet Conks Out

For the past few months, I have been accessing the Internet with my LG KU380 mobile phone, via Smart’s wireless network.

For the past couple of weeks or so, however, my attempts to go online using the wireless Internet facilities of the country’s largest mobile operator have been in vain.

Thinking that perhaps my sister’s installation of the Nokia PC Suite on my home PC corrupted somehow my LG PC Suite, I promptly uninstalled the Finnish giant’s connectivity tools from my computer. The Internet remains unreachable.

Next, I uninstalled and re-installed the Korean mobile company’s suite of mobile phone management tools. An impossible dream the Internet remains.

I then proceeded to reset my phone’s settings. Nothing happened. My inability to access the online world remains an unbeatable foe.

I, however, kept on tilting against windmills. I next checked and tinkered with my computer’s network settings and Internet options. Again, nothing happened.

With head bowed down, and wiser after realizing that one does not come to places where the brave dare not go, I now am considering sending in my application for a Globeline DSL and landline phone package.

Of course, I tried calling Smart’s customer service. I tried and tried, in fact. I couldn’t get through.

That’s all for the meantime, folks. Join me again next time as we keep on watching IT.