Nokia USB Charger

I have no computer, much more a network connection, at the new office I’m deployed to so I’m forced to use my netbook and phone for surfing and downloading. Needless to say, having both WiFi and HSDPA activated is a huge drain on the battery. So I looked around for a USB charger.

The first logical place to go to is of course your friendly neighborhood Nokia service center. They had some but at a staggering P1,200. Next stop, was CD-R King, purveyor of cheap electronica where I endured a somewhat slow queue only to be told that they sell them for P90 but are currently out of stock. I finally found it at Games and Gadget for P220. Not as cheap as CD-R King but it sure beats out-of-stock.

Now I can extend my surfing to as long as my netbook has power and as long as I can stomach the expensive telco charges.

Free WiFi: WiGO

WiFi is good. Free WiFi is even better. But it’s quite scarce. One of the more prevalent free WiFi hotspots are the ones from WiGO. It’s advertisement driven so once you connect, you’re taken to a captive portal where you are shown some ads. So far so good. I mean, they have to make money after all.

But, unfortunately, it doesn’t stop there. It also requires you to be running the WiGOBar,  a pesky ad-carrying floating window that blocks quite a large part of the screen like a fungus infection that just won’t go away.

There’s a solution for the Mac but what about for us Windoze users? Don’t lose hope. There is the Hide Windows Utility. Download, extract, and run (the .bat file),  and presto! No more WiGOBar.

I now heart WiGO, too :D

Bumper Scraper

The less-than-a-year old paint job on my bumper got ruined again. Michelle and I were driving along Ortigas when some stupid family driver (why do stupid people get to drive?)  swerved from my LEFT towards Xavier St. on the right. He almost made it but his rear end clipped my front bumper scraping some paint off and exposing the black plastic. And when he got down he even had the balls to say it was my fault!

There’s not sense talking to a useless moron so I talked to the owner who was inside. She readily admitted it’s her driver’s fault and she offered that the insurance take care of it (fat chance!). She was with her kids. Apparently, she was bringing them to school. Here’s their stupid driver endangering not just other motorists but also the owner and her kids. Too bad I wasn’t able to advise her to fire the driver. But I sure hope she does.

The EDSA Bus Hazard

A bus ran over a two-year old girl and her mother at EDSA yesterday. The girl died while her mother sustained injuries. It was not too long ago when a prominent doctor’s car got hit by a bus killing the doctor and causing the car to go up in flames. That and many more.

Every driver knows how hazardous EDSA is with all those buses. They weave in and out of their dedicated bus lanes and cause accidents with private vehicles, other buses, and pedestrians.

And when they’re not speeding around like the maniacs that they are, they’re causing monstrous traffic jams at intersections where they wait and wait and wait for passengers. One thing you would notice is that most of the buses have few passengers if any. You have to wonder, do we need so many buses and bus companies?

It’s too bad that the government, is not acting on this menace. For as long as they don’t do anything, there will be no justice for all victims of accidents involving buses. But I wouldn’t hold my breath for that. There’s just too much money involved.

Farewell to Cory

Corazon Aquino, popularly knows as Cory to all Filipinos, former president of the Philippines, symbol of hope during the dark days of a dictatorship, has passed away after a long battle with cancer. Farewell. You will be missed by this country, by this people.