It was a pretty normal Thursday morning. I got up, had breakfast, went through a little chaotic morning commute and when I arrived at the office, I was getting ready to count the hours before 5:30 pm. About half an hour before lunch, my phone rang, I answered and it was Jesus calling telling me the package containing my iPhone is ready for pickup. OK, it was really some guy from Johnny Air Cargo but for me he is the savior and the bearer of good news. I broke the silence of our extremely quiet office by exclaiming a really loud ‘YES!’

I can’t seem to remember the events that happened after that. Next thing I know, it’s seven o’clock at night and I was sitting at my desk, preparing to do one of the rituals of Apple fanboyism–unboxing an Apple product. I did not get the fancy black iPhone box since mine was a refurbished unit (I use the $50 I saved for shipping!) but a rather plain and simple sealed white box.

Package contents are the same and looks very pristine. All accessories look like they weren’t touched by human hands and the phone itself is shiny and flawless. It makes you wonder what form of magic Apple uses in their refurbishing process.

I am sure you have read a review somewhere before, seeing this is a 3-month old product so I’m not going to review it. But let me talk a bit about the unlocking process. Unlocking this thing is not hard at all though I can see how average folks would cringe reading about it. I followed every step on Hack the iPhone I am used to tinkering stuff so I was pretty confident. However, I did feel like iTunes is a ticking timebomb as I was dreading that Apple would push the new firmware 1.1.1 out anytime so there is no room for errors while my firmware is still 1.02 (it went out after I unlock my phone so I consider myself really lucky). After going through it all, I let out a cry of joy as I see the signal bar comes to life with SMART (my carrier) right beside it.

Everything, save for visual voicemail works perfect: calls, SMS, YouTube, WiFi, EDGE, etc. And I was pretty surprised that Smart’s EDGE is actually not bad. I love every part of it and I am willing to forego with the stuff that it doesn’t have. I ditched a 3G phone for this and I absolutely have no regrets. The intelligent keyboard is pretty amazing. I followed iPhone guy’s advice to trust it and next thing I know, I am typing with 2 fingers faster than I have ever done with a numeric keypad. I did compromise typing in Tagalog and TXTspeak though as obviously it only knows English words. Now my friends probably think I am a pretentious English-speaking bastard.

I am using an iPhone, I still cannot believe this. I am hearing loud gasps everytime I took it out in public and that is something I should probably get used to.

iPhone. It’s probably safe to assume that it is my most uttered work of the week. With the software unlock and the $200 price drop, it’s really hard to think of a reason not to get one. So armed with a credit card, I went to the online Apple Store and ordered. I have it shipped to Johnny Air Cargo in New York which will then forward it to Manila so delivery won’t be a problem. Or so I thought.

After waiting almost 48 hours for the status to change from “Not yet shipped” to “Prepared for shipment”, Imagine my dismay when I woke up Monday morning and saw that my order was cancelled.

I was stunned. I did not get an e-mail or anything on why they are cancelling my order. Then it dawned on me that a lot of people from PhilMug have been ordering from the store using different credit cards and having it shipped to that same address which probably made Apple put up red flags. One PhilMug member’s iPhone even have his with FedEx already only to discover a day before delivery that Apple have asked FedEx to return the package to them.

Fortunately my sister, who lives in California, kindly enough agreed to just have Apple deliver the package to her place and she will be the one to ship it directly to me.

Apple ships very fast when everything checks out. Within hours my order has been prepared for shipment and in less than 24 hours I got a FedEx tracking number. Just this morning, I heard from my sister that she got the package already and will send it to me as soon as possible.

Ahhh… the lengths I’ll go for a shiny new gadget. If you are in the US, think of how how lucky you are that you could just walk or drive to an Apple or AT&T store and be using your iPhone within hours. I extremely doubt that iPhone will be officially released here in the Philippines anytime soon so I would definitely enjoy being in that “exclusive club” for a while.

As you have probably heard by now, all iPods have been refreshed. Shuffle, nano, classic and the all-new touch, pretty much covering all bases. And yes, the iPhone is still there with a $200 price drop. For $399 it’s a friggin’ awesome deal. I want to take a moment of silence for the early adaptors who got screwed…moment’s over.

The timing of this announcement is perfect for me since my 5th-generation iPod is almost a couple of years old already and replacing it by this time sounds just about right. I still want the iPhone. I know, not officially released in Manila blah blah blah but the software unlock hack, despite the delays, is inevitable and I can finally buy and use one here.

Oh…how I wish I don’t give a damn about these things and just be contented on what I have now.

Today is a Wednesday and I’m writing this blog entry at 3:21 PM while at work, roughly 2 hours before they let us go home. I should probably have never said that because they might be reading this but whatever, I’m not scared. Yes, I finally gave in and got myself a pays-enough-for-my-lifestyle job. It is my third day here and so far, it’s not going well.

I am so damn bored. You see, I have to undergo training for a month, to learn about the company’s processes. I already know PHP and MySQL so they just let me read how to document everything. The way I see it, changing an uppercase letter to lowercase in a source code means I have to write 700 pages of documentation.

After reading it all for about 2 hours, I am left with nothing to do so I resort to what I like best while at work–covertly surfing websites. Every employee has perfected this art, surfing various junk while on full alert for incoming footsteps, ready to bring up the dummy excel document instantly. It is exhausting so feel free to make a trip to the watercooler every 10 minutes. Next thing you know, the clock strikes 5:30 and FREEDOM!

I am hoping that my situation will get better. Pretty soon I’ll start working on some projects that I will obsess about and I might just love this job. For now, let me go back trying to read a web page in a browser window as small as my head can block.

As I am writing this, the usually faint glow of our DSL modem, signifying that I am connected to the internet, is gone. It has been that way for over a week now, I am going crazy and PLDT is definitely not helping.

Their customer service people is a bit helpful now. They do not treat me as an idiot anymore and read their usual script, instead they just go ahead and forward my concern to the technical team. That is another matter though since I have no idea on what is happening behind the scenes, I am left wondering if it is in the process of getting fixed or stuck at the bottom of the queue.

People have been telling me to just switch providers but what are my choices, really? Smart Bro, which is still owned by PLDT, and Globe Wireless Broadband with top speed of only half a megabit. The lack of competition is pathetic considering I live in the middle of the city.

Take away the internet from me and I am almost nothing. Movies and TV shows that I watch, music and podcasts that I listen to are all downloaded off it. The absolute worst of it all is I do not have an excuse to just stay locked-up in my room and actually have to spend time and talk to people. Some of them just drive me nuts. Oh well, that’s me, always the pariah.