Aldorithm

I was waiting for Sherwin to withdraw his cash from the BPI ATM when a stranger caught my attention by pointing to the space between my feet. He was referring to a 1x1 picture that had fallen on the ground. A 1x1 picture of somebody I did not resemble in the slightest bit. I am tempted to blow up the picture for you to see but that wouldn’t be respectful to the person would it.

More on ze laptop:

Last year, around July, the CD slot cover (the strips of grey fabric acting as the “lips” of the superdrive) of my laptop came apart when I ejected a DVD. Apparently, the disc got caught on the strips when the superdrive spewed it out. In August we had a workshop in Pasay so I took the opportunity to drop by the Power Mac Center in SM Mall of Asia. But the branch did not offer technical support for hardware so I was referred to Power Mac-Greenbelt. I visited three months later but the guy said my concern needed “escalation” to Singapore, which Power Mac-GreenHILLS —not GreenBELT — does. I finally got to drop by the service center in Greenhills (was hard to find!) and successfully had the thing repaired. Actually, they had to replace the entire top case, including the keyboard and the trackpad, because the CD slot cover is built into the casing. So, in essence, 1/2 of my computer is now brand new! I’m typing on a fresh keyboard!

I felt absolute peace of mind when I left the store. However superficial a concern this was, the mere thought of a missing CD slot cover bugged me for months and even limited my use of the superdrive. So I’m happy the cloth strips are intact again however…

…now my keyboard backlights are not working! So I guess I’ll need to make contact with the service center AGAIN on Monday. On the brighter side though, at least I now know how to easily get to the place if I do need to come back.

Day 30 Outtake

The M in MRT must stand for malas (or if you insist an English word, misfortune).

Yesterday I got a call from Power Mac Center-Greenhills that the replacement part for my laptop had arrived and that I had to bring my unit over within two days. I decided to go (with Sherwin) today. Unfortunately, the buses to Cubao (from Los Baños) were all occupied so we decided to take the Buendia LRT bus, get off at Magallanes, and take the MRT to Ortigas. In our train ride we found our stop at Shaw Station to be unnecessarily extended. Turns out another train broke down in the middle of the track which was why we couldn’t keep moving. We didn’t want to wait so we got out and walked all the way to Ortigas Avenue. (Didn’t bother queueing with the rest of the angry passengers to refund our tickets.)

In the afternoon we found ourselves bound for Araneta at the Annapolis-Santolan Station. It was 4:20PM and the platform wasn’t busy so we imagined an empty train would pick us up and we’d have a peaceful, comfortable ride to our stop. To our utter shock, the first three trains that arrived were PACKED; the poor passengers were almost pushed against the glass doors. There was no way in hell we could have gotten in. Try as I might to request a refund for our money (because we couldn’t obtain a ride), the ticket lady wouldn’t budge. So we waited for the FOURTH train and, dead-set on not getting left behind this time, we unapologetically forced ourselves into the darned compartment. We were squeezed in next to each other that there was no need to grab on to a handle for balance anymore! (Besides, all the handles were taken.) Funny thing was, almost all of us got off at Araneta, thereby vacating the train.

Day 28 Outtakes

(Tumblr, when are you making the read more break available for photo captions???)

I made this clay person in pre-primary (gods, it’s been two decades!). Our teacher gave us a generous set of materials with which to sculpt and dress our stick figure (the clay head was mounted on a barbecue stick).

I brought it home for my mum to see; when she asked me what/who this clay person was, I proudly said, ME!

(How funny, my mum just entered the room, saw the stick figure, and reminded me of my joy as a kid in proclaiming that I looked like it.)