Lego Brickmaster: Star Wars - Worth the Retail Therapy

So last Tuesday, after having Mo towed from Las Pinas to Buendia (that’s a different post), Remi and I went gift shopping. To reward myself for finally getting Mo moved, I bought the Lego Brickmaster: Star Wars from DK Publishing (I know it doesn’t make fiscal sense to buy something to reward myself for something that will cost me more money, but I’m borrowing Mabie’s Logic of Retail Therapy, so it makes perfect sense.).

Anyway, back to the Brickmaster. To put this product into perspective, it combines two loves quite nicely. It’s a book which contains Legos. You can put together 8 models (2 models at a time) from the 240 bricks it has and it comes with two minifigures: a Clone Trooper and a Battle Droid.

The box says it’s for ages 7 and up, but the builds are quite intricate and quite satisfying for a nerd like me.

It’s a really good buy for 969 pesos at National Bookstore and if you’re somewhat of a neat freak, this is for you. The book comes with a pouch where you can store the Legos when not in use, and the geekgasmic instruction booklet is printed in thick, glossy paper with random Star Wars facts and full color illustrations.

Happy Commercialismas

Nothing fuels my hate fire for humanity better than taking the MRT at rush hour two weeks before Christmas. Everybody is out exercising their purchasing powers, and while half is stuck in traffic on EDSA and wishing upon each other a painful and violent death, the other half is crammed on the trains. It’s an amazing phenomenon, really. It all turns into a Laws of Physics-defying mass of humanity. You move up the levels of intimacy with your fellow train takers faster than if you’re drunk and frisky at a party. You start with a comfortable personal bubble and end up butt cheek to butt cheek with total strangers.

This varies of course. If you’re in the first car (the one for the women, pregnant, elderly, peeps with children, and peeps with disabilities), then it can go in any number of ways: butt cheek to back, boobs to back, and boobs to boobs, among others. This is not hot. Not hot at all. There are also instances when you will find yourself at odds with an extra large gift item, including, but not limited to, boxes of cakes, small foldable tables, wooden boxes, and large stuffed animals.

Personally, I think the most unpleasant is having my face pressed against a giant stuffed tiger, and having to inhale from said stuffed animal’s crotch area and getting instant asthma.

Happy Commercialismas to you too bitches.

Tales from the End of the World

As I sit on my desk at 1AM in the morning, I wonder. Should the world end today, the Apocalypse would catch me with my pants around my knees, so to speak. I’m working, and thus am writing about various tablets and several sales copies that need to be done before I go on Christmas break. Should the world end today, what would I have said for myself at the end of the day in front of the Whichever Gate? Better yet, while waiting in line in either Gate, what would I tell the other people while idling around before Judgement?

I’d probably tell them that writers got to eat, and hopes and dreams don’t pay the rent. Hah.

Anyway, when I think about it, there are a lot of ways in which the world can end for me – and it doesn’t involve global warming or giant asteroids or thermonuclear war. For one thing, losing the one person (The Girl) would pretty much have the same effect for me as the sun imploding.

Mush and doomsday soothsayers aside, I choose to believe that the Mayans marked this day, December 21 as an end of an era. Personally, the Change had started long before I started paying attention, and it had always been there like an asshole you can’t shake off, though I didn’t start paying attention until Mabie prophesied a “change in demographics.”

There’s Jex and Karl and Annabs living in their respective provinces, and there’s Jay living in a completely different country. They pop up once in a while, but it’s never really like the ‘old’ (shit, what?) days when we all went on epic benders with people tossing their cookies on my couch. There’s Rica who is now married and has a child. There’s Chris who is now un-single and is going out of Makati for the first time this year (I may be wrong). There were French Exits and FOs and various other screwed up stuff that makes scheduling a dinner an absolute nightmare.

My brother has two kids now, and thus I am Tita to a nephew and a niece, both of which have reportedly inherited my Sungit. (Gujab kids, next you will need to learn Angas.)

So you may have noticed that in the middle of this post that I again had forgotten where I was going whilst writing this. What were we talking about? Ah, yeah. The End of the World.

So my friends, if the world does end today, or if it just shrugs, says fuck it, and continues on like it does, still I will say, see you tomorrow.

The Volkswagen Club of the Philippines Car Show 2012

I’ve mentioned before how the Philippines has very healthy VW community (vwcp.org), and every year the community gets together to celebrate a perfectly good geekdom in classic car ownership. Remi and I went to this year’s annual VWCP Car Show to ogle at the various forms of VW nerditude and the eventual products of said geekdoms.

We were not disappointed. As we looked for a parking slot, we assured Subbie, Remi’s Toyota Vios that all the other cars she’ll see on the show are technically subcompact cousins from Germany). We parked, got out of the car, and suddenly, I was in the mothership. Every other car on that parking lot was a Volkswagen.

We took a walk around the lot and I classified each section in my head: the Daily Cars, the Kafer Cup Vroom Vrooms, the Hippie Buses, the Karmann Ghias, the Herbies, and the Ooooh Shiny Ones. The Daily Cars are my favorite of the bunch, simply because these cars are the ones you will see every day and frankly, isn’t it a wonder how those cars can still run perfectly well. They run better than most 40 year olds I know. 

Bili na kayo, Volks kayo dyan~! 

It looks like Mo, but not quite the same shade.

I'm sure he's not hiding Lindsay Lohan in there.

Purdy.

It's not a car... It's a Karmann Ghia.

Vroom! Vrooooom!

It's so pretty, and shiny, and pretty.

The Hippie Bus

Dune Buggy

Plus, I'm older than you are.

IT'S SO SHINY.

This is how you cultivate the 'Bug Bite' in little children. Note to self: I must get one.

Notice anything? It's an automatic.

Car Show

Universe, are you trying to tell me something?

Pretty in Pink

This has given me quite the idea.

I missed seeing Bacchus (Kuya Clark's orange bug, my inspiration for what Mo could look like in the future) and Hershey, their Volksrod. Still, it was a fun Sunday afternoon. 

Volks Chronicles: Headaches and Money Vortexes

I haven’t written any updates regarding Mo the past couple of weeks because I was tired, broke, and frustrated. The overhaul was done and over with, the brakes are fine, and I even bought a new starter. Still no go for my poor 1972 Volkswagen Beetle.

Here’s the Cliff’s Notes version:

1.       After getting the brakes brake bonded, I also had to get a starter bushing kit. I was told that the starter was shot, and they were trying to repair it.

2.       I also had to get new brake tubes and brake rubber thingies (I’ve forgotten what they’re called!). The starter still wouldn’t work, so I had to get a new solenoid to see if that would do the trick.

Secondhand Solenoid

Brake Rubber Thingies

3.       The starter problems persisted: The starter would get the engine going, but it also kept going. This would be a problem since if it didn’t stop running when the engine had already started, the starter would experience a catastrophic meltdown (which was what I thought I’d experience too).

4.       I was advised to get a new starter, the high torque kind. It looked awesome out of the box. Kuya Nardo Manzano, the parts guy, expressed his doubts about Kuya Mancio’s skills and cautioned that he might ruin the new starter too.

High torque starter, yeah!

It's so purdy~!

5.       I told Kuya Mancio to text me once he had the new starter in and once Mo’s going. He didn’t.

6.       Of course, we went to his shop and found that he had in fact tried the new starter. It started once. The second and third tries, however, were awash with epic fail.

7.       Once we got to Buendia, where Kuya Nard’s shop is (Kuya Mancio’s shop is in Las Pinas!), the starter was tested and IT WORKED FINE. Kuya Nards and his mechanics all shook their heads and told me, “Walang alam mekaniko mo.” (Your mechanic doesn’t know anything.) I considered whether the remark was some sort of mechanic trash talk or a blunt but spot on assessment of just how much shit I was in. I decided it was both.

8.       After discussing the options with Remi (Do I want to keep hitting my head with this money-sucking hammer? Or do I pull the car out of there ASAP to have it serviced by people who know what they’re doing?), we opted for the second option. We’ll pull out, tow, and have Mo fixed next week.

9.       We’ll do this next week because my goal date (the VWCP Annual Car Show) is this weekend. On Sunday. At the QC City Hall.

Kuya Clark of BatVolks texted me the other day to remind me about the car show. “Swabe na ba bug mo?” he asked. I told him no.

Things don’t always go as planned. Then again, based from experience, the best things in my life at the moment are the things I didn’t plan nor expect.