Hello, I’m Mark Castro and I lied. I said I’m going to blog more and sort of chronicle what’s happening to my life here in Spain. Obviously, that did not happen. Oppurtunity just did not present itself for me to be in the writing mood.
A lot has happened in these past few months, mostly good, or dare I say it, the best half year of my life. Let’s just say that when I look back 10-20 years from now, I would say that this is the point that really made a difference and changed the rules of the game. I won’t go into details because frankly I don’t really know if anyone interested.
Changing gears, if you’ve been here before you have probably noticed that there’s a new section on this site called Tumblr. It’s, you guessed it, my Tumblog. That section will be more updated than this blog as it’s easier to maintain and gives me more freedom on what I can post. I will still keep this blog, of course, but will keep it for articles, tips or other cool stuff I deemed worthy to write about.
Anyway, that’s it for now, hasta luego.
For the majority of iPhone owners, what am I gonna blog about is nothing new. You have been taking advantage of the Maps app the moment you first laid your oily finger on that cute little icon. For us in the Third World which don’t have detailed street maps on even the major-est of the city, calling that app useless is an understatement. A waste of icon space is probably more appropriate.
Imagine how I felt the moment I arrived in Barcelona and realizing that I have the whole city in my pocket. There is no place I could not reach, no awesome little corner shop I could not visit. I felt like a lost kid in a candy store, except I don’t need my parents because I can find my way around easily.
I knew coming in that I won’t have data connection when I arrive. There is no way I would enable data roaming at current prices. So I need a way to access Maps offline. What, a paper map? That’s madness!
Oh hello long-forgotten blog. Yes, this is another one of those “I am so sorry I haven’t updated for so long but promise I will write an entry regularly…PROMISE!” Well, it’s not like I have any active readers so whatever… I’m BACK!
So what have I been up to? Well you all know about me quitting my job, slacking at home for almost half a year and now I’m in Barcelona. Yes, you’ve read that right, en España. If you’re oh-so-shock then apparently you haven’t been following me on Twitter and you really should because I’m awesome. If you don’t have an account, create one just for me because you know, that’s totally the reasonable thing to do.
What am I doing here? To study. I have enrolled in a university to take my Masters in Advanced Computer Science. I have always wanted to come back to school and I’m usually the guy who chases his dreams no matter what so here I am, chasing that dream.
Am I having an awesome time? Well, not so much. You see I am missing home so badly and I can’t believe I am exchanging all the comforts I was having for this self-reliance crap. I know that sounds a bit spoiled but I’ve only been here for a week and I’m still having detachment pains. I don’t have any regrets though, not at all. I know this is all part of growing up and all this minor-but-seemingly-major hardships I am having will all be disregarded in the long run.
I haven’t really explored the city much so I can’t say anything about it yet but I PROMISE I will post regular updates from now on. Or whatever, it’s not like you will believe me. But I will.
I hate the EDSA MRT. If you have been following me on Twitter, you probably have noticed that most of my tweets are complaints while I am in the system. I don’t even want to call it a system as to a public commuter such as myself, I think the stations are poorly planned and the trains are taking in more than what it could handle. You can clearly see how flawed it is compared to the LRT-2 which started construction almost at the same time as the EDSA line and yet have properly designed stations and efficient fully-automated trains.
What made it even worse are the people. Although majority of the passengers are disciplined, as with every place in this world, there are some people who are uneducated, rude and arrogant that ruin the supposedly peaceful commute from home to work and vice versa. Some of these “characters” are described here so that you are prepared the next time you ride the MRT during rush hour.
The MRT stairway in most stations is usually divided by chains to separate those who are coming in from those on the way out. During rush hour, the line on the right going in can be so ridiculously long that it actually overflows to the street causing an insane amount of foot traffic. Some people, who obviously think that they are royalty therefore deserve to come in the station without much hassle, climb up the other side. Now when a train arrives and passengers get off at that station, the dimwits have already blocked their way causing yet another insane amount of foot traffic upstairs. Next time you encounter these kind of people, feel free to push and let them fall down the stairs. They are better suited lying against the pavement.
I’m a pretty lucky guy when it comes to my gadgets. Almost nothing I own have ever broken down while I was using it. Having said that, If I want to make a purchase and a lot of users have been reporting lots of problems with theirs, I usually just disregard them and buy it nevertheless.
Last night I was playing Portal on my Xbox 360, which I got just a couple of posts down. I am extremely close on solving the final level when the screen suddenly froze. I did not think much of it since my progress have been saved before that so I turned it off and turned it back on. What happened next is the one thing that all Xbox 360 owners are afraid of, the omen of an impending doom, the red rings of death:
Like a scene from a movie wherein a loved one died, I let out a loud and grim ‘NOOOOOOOOOOOO’ as I say goodbye to hours of fun that my Xbox 360 has brought me. I have read about it on the internet, heard it on the news and still I could not believe that something like that could really happen.
The good news is that the store is offering me a replacement—as soon as they get new stocks. In case you didn’t know, Microsoft Philippines is not supporting Xbox 360 units as it is not officially distributed here.
For now, there’s nothing I can do except wait.
