A can of coke, and what it really means to me.
Monday, March 24th, 2008
Coke and me is synonym. And yes, you can say the same about me with gadgets, computers, all those geeky stuff and 99% failure rate in love. But coke to me is something more abstract than that. To me, its more about mutual respect. As the ‘technician’ and ‘internet bomoh’ among my social circle, I often get requests like: “dude, my pc got struck by another virus, can you get rid of it?” or “I bought this uber high-tech laptop and for some wierd reason I can only load vista installer and not XP can you help me getting XP in it?”. What would be my answer? Of course I help them. I’d love to! I want to know more about those pesky virus and I want to know myself what seems to be the problem with the laptop.
“Come to my home his weekend, bring along your [insert item to be fixed here] along with a can of coke. If you plan on staying over, buy some for yourself too.” Yep. That’s the same line, everytime. So one of my friends come forth with a question. “Dude, what’s up with the Coke?”. That my friend, is something only one of my ex girlfriend understand.
Our parents and teachers always remind us to say thanks whenever someone help us. The coke, is simply that, plus a litle bit more. Most people think that computers and the like are my third language or something I’m born good with. The answer, is no. Computer, gadgets, gizmos are only but a hobby to me. Same goes to drawing, or even playing guitar. So it’s not that easy to fix your computer from a virus or recover your deleted files. My source of knowledge alone (4 magazines a month, internet) costs me more than a hundred bucks a month. The best thing about me is I never charge people for my services(my mom call me an idiot for that). Only a can of coke, suffice, because I know for sure that when you say “thank you”, you don’t really mean it.
Don’t argue with me on that point, because from my experience, only a life-threatening situation guarantee me a real “thank you”.
Late last year, I turn my friend’s PSP from Original firmware to a custom firmware. Although I don’t have any idea how to do that at that time, I studied it for a few weeks and ready to crack his PSP. As predicted, I done it gracefully. So I gain another can of coke and a “thanks”. That dude saved his wallet 150 bucks. But I gained more, I gained much more than that. I gained a new knowledge and acknowledgement whenever my other friends have touble with their PSPs, Im the one to find.
March 2008, my psp bricked. Unable to revive, without a help of another (phat or old version) PSP to help. So I call him and ask him to allow me to borrow his……….. You can guess the rest of the sad story. I might have to spend more than 150 bucks if I send it to repair…. So the conclusion is…. Unless you saved someone’s live, there is no such thing as a real “thank you”. If I can’t get that, A can of coke is enough. >.-
p/s:- yes I’m one of those ‘hard to understand’ guy. That’s because of my artistic blood. I can’t help it.
I’m a huge fan of Heavy Metal and Power Metal. What makes Power Metal so attractive is the Keyboard addition to metal that gives more space for the lead guitar to show off. Plus the keys give a very classical feeling to it. Also instead of shouting your throat off like in Heavy Metal, Power Metal tends to shout like sopranos, very high pitch and understandable.
