Goddess, I Am.

When we joined the IT Park Christmas Nights bazaar a month ago, the experience was nothing short of stellar. Everyone was so nice, from the customers to the organizers to the exhibitors. We got along well with our neighbors, helped each other out regularly, and even gave each other discounts. We had fun and found the whole bazaar thing such a great experience that we didn’t think twice about joining this month’s Sinulog bazaar.

The second time, however, is definitely not a charm. Sales are a bit low because people are too engrossed with the Sinulog revelry to think about shopping. We’ve had really bad weather practically all week, so the exhibition area has been constantly wet and muddy, and we even had to close 3 hours early on Friday night because the rain pummeled the tents quite badly. Worst of all, we somehow ended up with the next-door neighbors from hell (or at least, from China).

Since day one, they’ve done nothing but complain. First, it was our flooring; they claimed it went through our side of the wall to theirs (it didn’t). Days later, it was the life-sized tarp of my best friend, Aileen, who happens to be Innuendo‘s image model. They claimed that it was blocking their display when it was definitely within our boundaries (even the organizers agreed with us).

They kept at it for days, attacking my poor cousin who was manning the booth incessantly and even kicking the tarp stand! The way they were carrying on, you’d think they were selling awesome stuff like ipods or eggcups, but no, they were hawking cheap silver jewelry.

But I digress. It all came to a head last night when The Husband confronted them about it. When he asked them what their problem was, they started yelling and gesticulating madly in broken English. Then one of them started pulling on our tarp, and almost tore it off! I then told him off, and he advanced towards me like he was going to hit me. So The Husband yelled at him and told him that if he does that again, he (The Husband) was going to tread on his head. I pulled him away, told him to calm down, and he turned his back on them because I told him to just walk away.

Next thing I knew, said Chinaman grabbed one of those plastic Monobloc stools and hit The Husband on the head. The Husband grabbed him in a headlock while the other Chinaman joined the fray. By this time, the whole force of the brawl propelled all 3 men, like, 50 feet away from where it started – all within 10 seconds or less.

Now, these Chinamen are both rather short and scrawny, so The Husband handled them fairly easily. I was half-expecting them start going all Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon on The Husband, but really, the whole brawl just looked a bit like a couple of tiny hyenas trying to fight a tiger.

It was over as quickly as it started. Guys from the other stalls and some customers broke up the fight. The organizers came over and tried to sort things out. Naturally, two rather different versions of the story were heard from our side and from theirs (and their 2 skanky girlfriends/wives). They were going to be moved to another stall, but unfortunately, none of the other exhibitors were keen on moving, so we’re going to have to live with them for another week.

The Husband ended up with a couple of bumps on his head that are now thankfully gone and a banged up knuckle where he hit one of ‘em Chinamen’s teeth (said Chinaman was seen inspecting a loose tooth later). We called the cops, but they wouldn’t come after the fact, believe it or not. We were going to go in and file a complaint with the police, anyway, but the organizers begged us not to, saying it was going to give the bazaar bad publicity, blah blah blah. By this time, we were all exhausted, so we decided to just settle for an apology.

If one good thing came out of this whole mess, it’s that the organizer has told them that we can display the tarp all we want, as long as it’s not beyond 20 inches of our wall, so I daresay that we won’t be hearing any more crap from them within the next few days. Funnily enough, we haven’t even used those 20 inches because we were actually being considerate about their display, but because of this incident, we’re definitely going to use all our 20 inches now. Ahhh, the stupidity of the human race.

Still, I wish none of these ever happened. I hate it when The Husband fights. Why can’t men just talk? The excess of manliness is way too much for my sensibilities.

Owning a Mac is like raising a child. It requires expense after expense, not necessarily because it demands it, but because you always want what’s best for it. I thought my darling Gaius was a handful, but really, it had absolutely nothing on Octavian.

Octavian, by the way, is the Macbook Pro that I upgraded to a month after I got Gaius. Yes, I managed to work up the courage to tell The Husband, and yes, I really couldn’t help myself. Octavian is, without a doubt, the best laptop I’ve ever owned, and I’m completely in love with him, almost to the point of altar-worship.

But I digress. In the 4 weeks that I’ve had Octavian, I’ve bought accessory after accessory. And because Octavian IS a fabulous 13.3-inch Macbook Pro – the first of his kind – most of them do not come cheap.

Here’s the rundown of, umm, ‘damages’ . . . so far:

1. A pretty pink Sumdex laptop bag – P1,850 (approximate $38).

Now, I had a perfectly good laptop bag that I bought for Gaius. I couldn’t bear the thought of Octavian getting a hand-me-down bag from Gaius, however, so I convinced myself that it was not padded enough for skinny, little Octavian (which it really was), and sold it to Chin, who I am hoping is perfectly happy with it.

2. A scarlet CaseLogic laptop sleeve with a fantastic flower detail – P1499 (approximately $30).

I wanted to give Octavian in all his aluminum glory extra protection; hence, the sleeve. Now, I am completely aware that one can buy a perfectly functional sleeve somewhere between P100 (CDR-King) and P899 (the plain CaseLogic ones – no pretty flowers!), and I really was all set to go for the latter. However, I took one look at the red one with the flower in SM, and my self-control ran off, never to be seen again.

From time to time, in the dead of night when it behooves me to take stock of my life, I find myself wondering whatever possessed me at that very moment. But then I take one look at the beautiful scarlet sleeve and how good Octavian looks in it, and all is right with the world once again. Oh, and did I mention it was reversible?

3. A screen protector – P950.

I know, I know. One can get a screen protector for P100 (again) from CDR-King. In fact, I did get one for Gaius. The problem was that it was a DIY install, and it was so badly done that I didn’t want to risk it again.

So off I went to Digital Walker (Digital Hub in some places) in SM Cyberzone where I get a cool 10% discount, simply because I’m a member of the PhilMUG (Philippine Mac Users Group) forums. (I also bought Octavian from them, and Charlie, the owner, gave me discount of almost P11,000, which was a lot more than the usual 10%!) The guy in charge of the Cebu store personally installed my screen protector, and he did it so well that you won’t even know it’s there! There isn’t a single bubble or speck of dust trapped between the protector and the screen itself. I’ve never seen such a stellar screen protector installation in my life!

4. A silicon keyboard protector – P500 (about $10).

My life revolves around my laptop since I work 16 to 20-hour days with nary a weekend free. I even take meals with Octavian on my lap, which makes a keyboard protector an absolute necessity, myself being a scatterbrained klutz.

Thankfully, I found a keyboard protector from China on eBay that’s been made especially for aluminum unibody Macbook Pros. It features black keys on see-through silicon, so Octavian’s keyboard still gets to glow in all its prettiness. Plus, I don’t have to worry about spills and crumbs anymore!

5. A trackpad protector ($9.99) and a pretty logo ($4.99).

It has always been my intention to keep Octavian as bare as the day he was born (or at least, the day he was bought), but when I discovered SkinStyler, my resolve literally flew out the window. After all, how can I resist the oh-so pretty Apple logo of old on Octavian, instead of the newer and oh-so generic white one?

The trackpad protector was a bit of an afterthought. I figured if I was getting something shipped all the way from Malaysia, I might as well make the most of it. I’m very happy how it turned out, though. I didn’t go for the more colorful designs, even when I was sorely tempted to do so, because I figured it’ll look all wrong on Octavian’s original color scheme. The logo is ostentatious enough as it is.

6. A cooling pad – P280.

Because I have so much to do all the time, poor Octavian has to work almost non-stop every day. If he was a Windows-running laptop, he probably would’ve died of sheer exhaustion by now!

But again, I digress. Octavian does tend to get really hot when I run OS X and Windows on VMWare Fusion simultaneously, and I figured he needed a bit of help. I was initially all set to get me a Belkin cooler (P1500), but I’ve been assured that any cooling pad will work just fine. And because I’ve already spent quite a lot in less than a month, I figured it can’t hurt to get a cheap one.

I got a nice, compact, foldable one from Global Village, and so far, I’m very happy with it – at least, until I saw the same cooler in pink at CDR-King. I can’t justify getting another one right now, though, especially with a reason as trivial as color, so I’m sticking to this boring black one for the moment.

Unfortunately, it doesn’t look like Octavian’s expenses are coming to an end. Since I bought the cooling fan, I now need a flat surface to put it on when I’m working on the couch. I have my eyes set on something called the iLap, but I’ve been told there’s a P600 CDR-King version, so I’m going to check that out. Right now, I’m just using Octavian’s box, and it’s so unfashionable, not to mention uncomfortable.

I also want to upgrade Octavian’s measly 160GB hard drive to 500 GB because I’m downloading so many movies and it’s filling up fast. And oh, I want to upgrade my DDR3 RAM from 2GB to 4GB for no particular reason other than I can and it sounds like a good idea. And I will also want another bag or two down the line because one can’t have too many laptop bags, after all.

I swear, if Octavian can go horseback riding, I’ll gladly buy him breeches. Heck, I’ll even send him to college, if he wasn’t so smart already.

Really, with a Mac, who needs children?