Still working on my panoramic skills
Quite a ridiculous, somewhat sordid and amusing tale happened to me in the early weeks of February, which I ironically am able to finally type all because I am not feeling well (again). It starts off with my laptop's AC adapter dying out of the blue, causing me to have a giant question mark over my head as to why I was running on battery mode. Lucky for me the adapter has a light that goes on when it is working, and that light was dead. So I went to the mall a few times wondering if a place like Radioshack exists, and I came across a place called SST Laptop, supposedly, the laptop repair specialists. So I trotted out my lappy over to there, hoping I can leave with a functioning adapter, was told to wait 1-2 hours, and did so.
For some reason, as big as that mall is (Robinsons Place Manila), those 2 hours went by quite fast, and I didn't even go around the entire place. Upon returning to SST, I inquired, got the adapter back, and was only told to sign something. I asked if I can test it, was told no, and to my surprise I asked if it was even fixed, and was also told no (remember I am speaking english here). So I asked what is the problem, and they said the Voltage Regulator, and promptly showed me a slightly burned piece. OK I said, slightly huffing under my breath "heh, laptop repair specialists". You see, that particular SST had a massive bunch of adapters for sale, for over 3,000 peso (roughly $75-$80), and the repair costs, had it actually been repaired, would've cost about 900 peso (a little over $20). The reason why I see that as a rip, is not only was it just a tiny simple little Voltage Regulator that died (thank you country for all your miserable blackouts and power spikes), but they returned my poor adapter in such a miserable state than when I handed it to them. I had opened it myself, to check for any visible burns that could've been fixed by myself (I had previously seen the demise of another Laptop adapter), and I had already made the insides accessible, but no, they had to cut even more IMPORTANT stuff that they didn't need to, I had already removed the metal cover surrounding the internals of the adapter, and they desoldered the damn things off, and as if an insult to injury, I got the adapter back with the metal part taped with some hilariously cheap uber-sticky electric tape, and then they glued the whole thing back together. Sit on that for a moment there. I gave it to them opened, and not glued, and they gave it back glued. It pisses me off because it wasn't even glued properly, whatever cheap-ass glue was used, was poorly applied and is the eating type of glue, that discolored some of the outer part of the adapter, and now I have an adapter with some white-ish coloring on the side, and the adapter still wouldn't work.
Hey, hermit crabs! Guess I'm not the only one in this country with them crawley's.
Well I didn't wait. As soon as I traffic-ingly got home, I tore apart another Sony adapter, ripped out the Voltage Regulator, and put it in myself. My lappy lives. IT'S ALIVE!!! I just did a Mwu la Flaga on my adapter, I did what [trained] professionals couldn't do! All at the expense of an external DVD Writer... without a soldering Iron mind you. I know I fixed phones, PDA's, 2 of my dead DS's, but nothing reached the level of this adapter because hey, it's a laptop. Not only does it cost a lot more, but I came to realize that I actually needed that lappy more than I thought, and took that for granted. This country has killed a lot of my chargers, but I wasn't going to write off my lappy so soon.
The regulator. Either it burned itself or they burned it when they de-soldered it off.
On the lighter side, I do find the malls here in Manila.PH somewhat amusing, as I made note that, despite the massive amount of people, you will see 95% of the stores empty save the 5-10 workers they got in there. No kidding man, stores usually have way more workers than customers, and it made me wonder, who buys these things? Excluding the foreigners there like myself, as Robinsons Place Manila is what I'd call a bonafide Foreigner Town, but really, where do all these folks walk to and why is it so crowded inside the mall, and not in the stores, is an answer I haven't found...
Being the astute observer that I am, I will say though the girls here are quite pretty indeed. The popular choice of fashion: hot pants, and a tee. Something to get every man's blood boiling, sure, but my observations of the hairstyles weren't so much to write home about. Sure, I saw a few ponytails, god bless those girls, but the popular choice here is regular hair down, or tied into a bun, further destroying hopes that maybe, just maybe in a country somewhere out there, Twintails aren't just for children, because lately that's all you'll ever see them on in this country. But another amusing observation I made, was that most of these girls are rather tiny in stature. Now I know the difference between a child (kid), a girl (unmarried female), and a woman (motherly aura), and believe it when I say this, grown girls here are usually small, quite small indeed that I always had to watch and make sure I don't bump into them because I was horrified at the thought of damaging them if I had. I am quite taller than most of them, and it also made me smile seeing foreigners with their much smaller asian wives (remember, I'm quite good at observation, and can tell the difference between wife and date). And in case you are wondering, I went to the malls only for business, and sought no action or one-night stands thereof, and have no plans of finding a girl here to call my own. Think of it as, me actually getting out of 2D and seeing reality for a change, real life ponytails and hot pants that seem to jeer at my hoping to see at least one skirt or two. Something tells me I didn't have to add the end part of this paragraph...
You really won't see girls wearing outfits like that (black outline) in this city. Seriously, it's... the sad truth.
I LOVE PONYTAILS!! There. I got that off my chest.
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