Homeless Diver

Its not enough that Boracay has a brown-out every day but now there are these weird power surges and drops. Down in the dive shop, appliances have been blowing up. In the house here we have gone through three extension cords, an external hard drive, a camera charger, two cell phone chargers, a soldering iron, a hot-glue gun, and a set of bed sheets. All destroyed from these power fluctuations. Well, the bed sheets were burned when a drop-then-surge caused an extension cord to catch fire on the corner of a bed.

There is one good thing though, well its not so much good as it is just a lack of bad weather. By bad weather, I mean ‘normal’ hot and humid weather here. I don’t know why Filipino travel sites extol the virtues of vacations here during the summer. They use terms like escape to Boracay during the sizzling hot summer days. I’m thinking..uh-huh, its more humid here than in the cities and much clearer skies (read: hotter). But recently, there has been a lack of hot weather…oh its still hot at times but we have been having daytime and nighttime storms and the coolness has been accumulating a little bit to where I don’t use the aircon for most of the night.

But anyway, back to the power surges. A surge is always bad but most modern appliances can handle it. Even computer cords. These, however, are drops in voltage then you can hear in your fans and air conditioners that it starts fluctuating up and down really fast and finally spikes upwards before settling down. Not good.

And another thing to complain about while I’m at it: this has been going on for years from what I’m told. Do they sell surge protectors here? Not a single one to be found! I went to the only electronics shop on Boracay and two of the three staff members didn’t even know what I was talking about. Very nice people, but not very electronics knowledgeable. (dont ask them for a 200 gig laptop drive with external enclosure, they don’t have a clue what youre talking about and will try selling you a desktop IDE model).

It doesn’t stop. Another brown-out. Didn’t they used to be called black-outs? Is it a power outage? Is there a reason like over consumption? No, its not that as told by the government itself a while back. The trunk cables under the channel can only carry so much power and they keep blaming it on the over development of Boracay by insisting that we are using too much power at the same time.

Really?     golly, just how much power is getting used on a cool and comfortable night at 0400 in the morning? Yea, I didnt think so, but yuppers, thats when the power went out this time. Four in the morning. At least it only lasted a few hours and the weather was nice for a change.

We just can’t seem to get enough of these power outages here on Boracay these days. This one was in the daytime just as the heat was ramping up. Mind you, I only have Air conditioning inside of a few bed-rooms so the bathrooms and everything else are not cooled. During this brown out, it was so hot that most of the water evaporated from two separate toilets in the house. I wasn’t feeling so good and spent the day sweating on top of towels on the bed but managed to venture out into the house a few times….man, it is a scorcher here! A few minutes is one thing, but this one was all morning into the noontime.

Hot! Steamy! Drains every last drop of energy from me. It should be a crime to advertise travel deals during this time of season.

It floors me that the Philippines cannot get its act together and provide the bare minimum power requirements for its most famous beach resort island … all this power consumption was known well in advance from all the construction going on here. Takes at least a year to build a resort.

This same brown out kicked the refrigerator into defrost, (which it needed anyway). I went into the kitchen tonight and saw the towel under my aircon unit but traced the flow under the table and over to the fridge, which had the drip tub in the back overflowing. Hmmm….the toilets evaporate but the water spread out over a hot tile floor doesn’t. Go figure.

The weather in Boracay is pretty bad right now. It will get really cool for about 10 minutes in the middle of the night, then it will rain a downpour, then get warm again. The next day it will be massively hot and humid.  People who wish to travel here for now are going to really not like the outside weather. There is no wind, perfectly calm. No breeze of any kind. Humid and sticky.

Boracay is still having power outages also. Travelers dont ever get told that their hotels might have aircon but no electricity / power. I would be upset to travel here on a vacation and find there was no electricity. Even though the modern marketing electronic age is increasing tourism, its going to also make it easier for would-be tourists to find the truth. Power outage.

The water has also been really bad lately.  For people that travel here on vacation, here is the trick … be sure they don’t open your water bottles for you. A lot of places advertise free bottled water for guests but its not bottled at all. They reuse plastic bottles and push down on the cap when turning so you can hear popping sounds as if it had been sealed. Truth is that most places boil the tap water and refill bottles for cooling. My point is this, the tap water from both sources has been having silt and dirt in it lately. In the small bottles, you cant see it. In a large container, it looks downright brown.

I was starting to feel bad about sleeping all day and waking only after sundown … not any more. I would be highly upset as a tourist right now.

Its a sweet camera as far as quality goes on images and video…but it sucks to high hell in so many other areas that I do not like it one bit.

Sony DSc-G1

It’s got wireless..that doesnt WORK! Its cool enough to let me set the router password and whatnot…but for some reason, no one can see it on the net. Oh, sure you can designate another device to send it to…but thats what the hell blootooth is for! Why the hell would I need a 3G camera?  Whoopidy-do! It still put me back $600 bones!

Lets see:

• Case-opening is a pain and slider is nosiy.
• Case-they feel like theres grit/sand in it.
• Screen-this baby looks nice but its gonna get scratched and cracked in a few weeks. Who the hell needs a 3 inch preview screen with better resolution than a HDTV?
• buttons-slow as heck on transitioning. Push a button and wait a sec or 5.
• side buttons-why is there a ‘home’ and also a ‘menu’ button? Both of them are detailed cascaded menus.
• Video-would someone please tell me why the FUCK they would record videos in .mp4? Nice quality but be DAMNED if you’re gonna be able to email them to anyone cause they’re so friggin huge! If you really need that kind of quality, then you’re already a dumbass for trying to get pro-footage with a tiny handheld. No options for changes…only the video output for TV (PAL/NTSC)
• power-if it ever gets low on batt, then all your albums just locked up and you cant take pics until you spend a hour doing the internal recovery steps.
• Cradle-this one is the worst. You CANNOT charge it without the cradle. You CANNOT upload pics w/o a cradle. There is the regular powersupply cord with the bulky multivolt box inline (this goes to the cradle). There is the standard Sony camera data cable, except that it cant be plugged into the camera this time—wrong connection on the camera. Gotta use the cradle. How GODDAMN ANNOYING Is THAT!?!?! I guess if everyone that owned cameras had a single PC, in a single room, on a single desk, with room for a permanent fixture like a cradle and its cords….yea, that might work but you cant do anything with the pics until you get back home. 1 Camera, 1 Cable–thats what they used to make. Easily portable. Who the fuck is going to carry a cradle and powercords in their pocket when they goto a game or some other event?
• carry case-oh right, for $600 dollars you dont get one of these either…how fucking cheap is that? Which brings us back to the screen..tis baby sticks out so theres no such thang’ as pocket time.
• Memorystick-they accually dissuade the purchase of one of these by letting everyone know that it alreagy has 2 Gig internal mem. You could pull that out to bypass the whole pic transfer thing but it will mess up your settings and album-mem when you goto put it back in.
• Music-i shit you not, this thing has more options for music organizing than an iPod. What retard in the world needs that on their camera? Better yet, what retard is going to carry around a camera to listen to music? It has a headphone jack, sure, but no friggin data cable jack.
• Speed-doesnt exist. Turning on is slow enough to ruin your roll. Finding some interesting stuff to photo thats not considered still life? Well then, you’re just screwed. The delay between pics is unreal and whats also not good is that I cant tell you how long it is. It will vary between 2 and 7 seconds…I have no clue why it varies.

That big, huge, monsterous gecko that lives in the house…well, she might be dead. I’ve had a rash of cats getting into the house lately from the balcony and even a fight in my kitchen the other night….but last night, I saw the geckos tail. About 3 inches of it anyway. On the floor in an area that she never goes. I think the cats might have gotten her but at least I know she put a hurtin’ on them…she was a mean fu*ker.  At about 18 inches long, she was just starting to warm up to me. I was feeding her cicadas from the front porch (she always hangs out in the kitchen at night). These cats are hungry all the time and I doubt they would have left the tail section unless they had the body. They even steal whole chicken quarters when I’m marinating them and recently jumped on the HOT grill to get at the chicken carcass that I was searing.

Everyone else went to Manila for a short vacation of hanging out with friends and generally doing the upscale ‘thang in the Makati district. As much as I would have loved it (because I generally only find the scummier areas) I couldn’t go for a few reasons. Had I know about it more in advance, it would not have been a problem and honestly, for the price of these plane tickets I would want to spend more than 3 nights there. It’s not exactly the easiest traveling to/from Boracay.

The irony is that I rarely go hang out with them or even get off the hill much any more…now that everyone is gone, man, it’s really quiet around here. I even had to kick ole’ girl out since she was starting to do the ‘use  the gringo’ mentality. Sorry, I might be in need of simple company but I’m not some low-self esteem sad sack.

Bored, bored, bored. I guess I’ll turn in some assignments today and work on this site a bit more. I never have trouble getting engrossed in tracing .php code. And drink whilst doing it…of course.

Cyanide & Happiness @ Explosm.net

Cyanide & Happiness @ Explosm.net

Cyanide & Happiness @ Explosm.net

Cyanide & Happiness @ Explosm.net

I really dont like these things. I thought I was done with them, but no. I goto the can in the middle of the night and what do I see right over the toilet? This bad boy. Its the size of your palm. And yes, they bite people.

It’s been a week, maybe two. I’m just not feeling it these days.  Not so much that I’m ill but more like I dont feel motivated enough to get out.

I got a call last night really late: “I’m down at Red Pirates, come get me! I’m so druuuunk!” Nope, she wasn’t there. No one had seen her. Then I get another call an hour later…”I’m gonna be at Red Pirates baby….come get me…I’m so druuuunk”.  To which I said no. Nope, no way, not happening, dont want to see you, stop calling me.

Oh, and to those of you staying here over the past few weeks…..DAYMN!  How did you manage to use that much water? My bill was 4 times what it was when we had 4 people living here full time! Oh well, thats why we ask for a little rent money.

I’ve paid all the bills. Paid the rent. Gotten my mail. Done my laundry. Finished the current assignments. Burned the trash. Swept the kitchen. Washed the dishes. Put water in the fridge. Updated my browser. Edited some php code. Sent a resume out. Turned down some nookie. Cooked some noodles.  Guess thats all I’ve done this morning.

Now, I guess I could: replenish the 2-bottle tanduay stock, buy some coke-cola, pay my Red Pirates tab, clean my room, wash all the countertops, clean a few bathrooms, get my taxes sorted out, pack up all my things to see if I can fit it all in the event I have to leave, super-clean my now damaged Mk-25 regulators, buy a lighter, buy some real food, clean the fridge,

—–or just zone out for a while playing a game.