angrylittleboy

For almost 30 years, I managed to keep my valuables intact while in places like Quiapo, U-Belt, Baclaran, Monumento & Tondo. I started commuting by myself at the age of 8, and not once did I get held-up or my pockets picked. I grew up in one of Mandaluyong City’s toughest streets back in the 80’s, and I’ve been with people from both sides of the fence.  I’m street-smart, and petty scams and pickpockets were beyond me. That’s what I thought.

Last Saturday, me, my roommate Travis and our friend Tony attended the Fête de la Musique at Metrowalk Ortigas. I didn’t really think about staying for too long; the plan was “take some photos, catch up with some friend’s post-wedding party and call it a night”. At least that’s how it was supposed to be when I still had my cash in my pocket.

Later on in the evening, the three of us decided to check out the stage for Heavy Metal. Bad idea, because within 10 minutes after entering the gates, Tony lost his mobile phone to a pickpocket. A couple of minutes after that, it was my turn and I lost both my mobile phone and wallet in one swipe.

A mobile phone, a considerable amount of cash, important IDs, some cards, a pendant my mom gave me, some mementos from friends, some important papers, all gone. My pockets, picked clean, within (of all places) Metrowalk. I tried reporting the incident to a security personnel, but he shrugged it off, saying “it always happens” and that there was nothing they can do about it (Thanks for the help, Mr. Security Man).

I was pissed, but was there anything I could’ve done about it? Meh. Pointless. We finished the night with me freeloading on beer from Rommel and hitching a ride home with Travis.

I learned my lesson already. Tondo? Baclaran? Quiapo? They won’t compare to Fête de la Musique.

Kingston Technology just released the world’s first 128GB flash drive. 128 G-I-G-A-B-Y-T-E-S. That’s around a hundred ok-quality full-length movies, at least 20,000 mp3 songs or 100,000 jpeg photos.

If you’re looking for a portable storage device for your photos, videos & MP3s (or a temporary storage for those times when you have to reformat your computer), a 128GB flash would be handy. The flash drive also has an encryption system built-in.

But with a $549 price tag, I think I’ll pass for now and wait for CD-R King to come up with their own 128GB flash drive.

Olympus’ E-P1 is now officially out. It comes in 3 kits: $750 for body-only, $800 for body plus zoom lens & $900 for body plus pancake lens. These are MSRP, so prices can be lower (or higher, depending on where you’re buying your unit). It’s priced as much as intermediate-level DSLRs like the Nikon D90 and Pentax K20D, but we can still expect prices to dip in a year or so when other manufacturers make their own high-end compact cameras (rumors have it that Panasonic is making their own compact micro-4/3 unit and Samsung will be producing a small, APS-C sensor camera a-la Sigma DP2).

Now comes the hard part: To buy, or not to buy? In my case, it’s this or a medium-format come next year.

More information can be found at dcresource and dpreview.