SMX NBS and B&D VH 900

It's uncanny how the new girls I meet all studied in the same high school. It's that's a Sign the only thing I'm interpreting from it is other school-girls are either married or not getting out much.

But let today be a day of fates and irrationales. Had I not decided to go the SMX to check out the Book Fair, I might not have run into Lola at the National Bookstore booth and met her friends Liza and Paige, both avid bibliophiles. While Liza bought the lion's share of books (and upon my recommendation bought Book 2 of the colored version of Bone, though I offered to just give her d-loaded versions of Books 1-7) to also avail of free bags, I disappointed Lola by buying a nonfiction title (she's in charge of ordering all the fiction titles for NBS) and accidentally spilling some of her (thankfully not too hot) cafe latte.

I might have decided to spend the rest of the afternoon w/ Liza and Paige, in between deciding whether or not to watch Hellboy II (didn't) or have an early dinner at Tokyo Cafe (did). I might not have enjoyed spending time and chatting about books, pop culture, online RPG marriages and the nuances of tsinoy family life. But I did. And I'm glad.

I parted ways w/ the girls and met up w/ Ma at Ace Hardware. At the end of her shopping stint we asked for a demonstation of their Black & Decker VH 900 vaccum cleaner. The sales clerk was trying to push us towards those gray, egg-shaped "As Seen on TV" vaccum cleaners, w/c I was suspicious of. He plugged in the latter to how us how it had stronger suction power. Yeah, yeah, I thought, just get to the one we want. When the clerk turned it on the VH 900 did seem weaker, so I decided to give it a try to make sure. Not two seconds after I turned it did the power on it go out and we smelled something burning. The frakking thing blew a fuse! I told the clerk in Tagalog "That better not be 110 (volts)," and Ma and I decided to hold off buying a new vaccum cleaner, at least until we can get one that only sucked in function, not quality.