Last night I went down to the hotel restaurant for dinner and as usual the TV was on. Most of the time there is some variety show playing, or something that is like the local version of American Idol. This time I noticed something different. I started to notice a lot of special FX in the show they were watching. This got me interested. As the show went on, there appeared a villain in an iron mask. At this point I knew it had to be some kind of superhero show. This was confirmed by the later appearance in show of Kapitan Boom.

The show is shot all digitally, with some minor attempts to film look it, and a lot of the FX which were on screen would probably be considered cheesy by western audiences used to Heroes or Smallville, but I personally thought it was very cool. Maybe it's because I didn't think they would have shows like this at all, or maybe it's just because the hero flies, which I am a sucker for. The flying effects were pretty cool in my book. They certainly don't try to avoid it like the other two shows I mentioned.



Apparently Kapitan Boom is not its own series, but is part of a long running TV series called Komiks Presents, which adapts popular local comics for the small screen. When this show first started, in February 2006, every episode was a different story, adapted from different Filipino comics. By the third season though, the series broke from this pattern and had each season devoted to a single story. The sixth season began the story of Kapitan Boom.

Kapitan Boom was created by Mars Ravelo, who was apparently the number one Filipino comic artist at one time. According to Wikipedia:

Mars Ravelo was born on October 9,1916 when the Philippines was still American Territory. Mars went through a life of hardship and dropped out of high school, vowing to be number one in whatever he did. Mars started out as a cartoonist, then as a writer, and later on as editor -in- chief for two major publications houses and even for several film companies. Ravelo was the highest paid comic writer during his time. He later established his own company, RAR, to give him more elbow room with more obras. Mars Ravelo used to say that he wanted to impart " the highest form of values to the lowest tier of our society with the lowest form of literature"

The guy has a list of published works a mile long. I guess what intrigues me is that he has done what I really want to do. Many of his works have been adapted into TV shows and major motion pictures over the years. He has also written movies himself. Looking at that list makes me realize just how much I really need to devote to my own dream if I really want to be successful at what I do.

During the commercial breaks for Kapitan Boom, they were already advertising what appeared to be another fantasy, superhero show. I guess that might be what they have planned for next season of Komiks.

On a side note, I noticed, each night as I watch Tv and the many commercials therein, that the people you see on TV don't look like the local people I see in the real world. I know that this is true just about anywhere, as even in America, people on the street don't necessarily look like Tom Cruise or Brad Pitt, but the difference here is quite dramatic. The people on TV are often very light skinned and very asian looking. Many of them could probably blend in on TV in China or Korea. The people on street, though, are usually much darker skinned and many have slightly more African or South American looking facial features.

I have heard and read that Filipinos are obsessed with white skin. This should most certainly not be confused with being obsessed with white people, though, whom they don't seem to hold in very high regard. The very pale Asian look of some Chinese and Japanese seems to be held as an ideal. I even saw a commercial where a woman has a portrait done by an artist and he accurately reproduces her tan lines. Instead of wanting her body evenly tanned, she wants the rest of her skin whitened to match the tan line. She uses the skin scream which was the purpose of the advertisement, then goes back to the artist and has him fix the painting. That wasn't the only commercial for skin whitening cream I saw.

Last night my friend Marifel had a big birthday party. I got her a cake care of the boyfriend of Gina-san, another friend who is fluent in Japanese. It was an all out party and much drinking ensued. I didn't have my iPhone on me so I didn't get pictures of the cake or other aspects of the party. The picture to the left is from earlier, where me and Angel took Marifel out to eat. We went to Lemon Grass, the Vietnamese and Thai place I wrote of earlier. I had those amazing ribs again. Actually, we all did, pretty much just ribs and rice. Being quite the funny character, when we were done, Marifel asked the waiter for, "Take out, inlcuding all the plates and siverware." I would have remembered to take a picture of the plates of ribs, but I was distracted by the cute poses Marifel was doing.

Interestingly, I was supposed to meet Marifel and Angel at Bo's Coffee Shop. I like this place because it has free WIFI for my iPhone. Now I knew there was also a Bo's Coffee stand in the middle of the mall somewhere, but compared to the main shop, I didn't see any chance for a mistake in where we would meet. What I did not know, however, is that there is another huge Bo's Coffee Shop just outside the mall and Angel, having arrived early, waited for me there for almost two hours. I got a text from Marifel, who didn't even wake up until an hour after we were supposed to meet, which said, "Where r u? Angel is waiting u in Bo's" I replied, "I've been sitting at Bo's for over an hour." That's when we figured it out.



The party was a lot of fun. We also went to a Japanese karaoke joint where Gina-san amazingly sung traditional Japanese music called Enka. Marifel convinced me to sing a Japanese song and so I went for one of the songs of my youth, in the days when I worked at a Japanese karaoke bar in Tucson Arizona (go figure, huh?). My reading of Japanese text on the karaoke screen was so rusty, though, that Gina-san had to help me with the lines. I need to start practicing again. Although it was a very fun night, the wild and crazy Marifel drank way too much, vomited on the floor of the place, and passed out. Gina-san had to take her to her place. Luckily I got a text from her just minutes ago and she is fine now and back at home.

Who knows what adventures lie ahead?

Today I went to Ayala Mall, which seems to be a regular occurrence now, to extend my visa. If you arrive in the RP with no papers of any kind, you are stamped at customs with a 21 day tourist visa, which you can extend for short periods for up to one year before you have to leave. This can be done in person at the Bureau of Immigration, which most say is a simple process, or you can have a travel agency handle it all for you. Since I wanted to go to Ayala anyway, I decided to go the travel agency route. Just outside the mall entrance is an AMEX Travel agency and they were able to take care of everything.

After leaving the agency, the next item on the list was some shopping. There is a huge grocery store in Ayala which I had never visited before. All the standard items you would expect of grocery store were there and many were much cheaper than they are in the U.S. They also had many Asian products you couldn't get in a standard grocery store in the U.S., except at some of the Asian grocery stores in California. Now being in a mall, this stuff is cheap to me, but still quite expensive for the average local. My friend Michelle was surprised at what I was willing to pay for something like a can of Planters Peanuts, even though is was less than half what it might cost at a grocery store in L.A.



After that, the next item on the list was food. Michelle took me to a place called Max's, which has the slogan, "The House That Fried Chicken Built". Fried chicken is quite popular in the Philippines and there's plenty of it, cheap. Although we had a bit of fried chicken, the main thing Michelle ordered was this soup that had whole shrimp in it, heads and all. I tried the soup, and it wasn't that great to me, but she seemed to love it. Even if the soup stock tasted great, though, I don't know that I could have gotten past the shrimp with heads and little legs.

Luckily for me, they also had some batter dipped and deep fried shrimp as I would naturally expect. It came with a cup of some kind of sweet sauce to dip in and it was great. I also had some Shanghai style fried rice which was pretty good. The fried chicken itself, though, was nothing special in my view. I think the fried chicken at my hotel is better. It's amazing that it's so cheap. Not at this place, mind you, as mall dining can approach U.S. prices if you're not careful, but at most places you can get half a fried chicken for about $2 or $3. I can't imagine how cheap it would be at a place that didn't cater to foreigners.

In all, I realize I am probably spending more than I should on this first leg of my adventure, and I am not writing enough, as far a paying gigs are concerned. Of course, this is expected to some degree as I had no misconceptions that I would walk into a new place and environment and sit down and work 24/7. That is kind of what I am trying to escape also. Still, it is time to settle in and starting focusing on why I am here. I wrote, "I chose to take my chances, hop on a plane and head to South East Asia. With few exceptions, many places in Asia have a cost of living as low as 20% of what it might cost to live in Southern California. There I could conceivably sustain myself on my internet endeavors and have some real adventure to boot. Since I am doing my work in the wired, it shouldn't matter where in the world I am at any given time, as long as there's access. It would appear as though I can't lose." That is still the plan. Not to say I haven't been working at all or bringing in any money, but I am really starting to see the potential for what devoting just a few hours per day to internet business can do for creating an incredible lifestyle here.

The other day, me and my friend Michelle went to SM Mall, the larger mall I wrote of in an earlier post. I don't remember if we had a specific reason to be there, but on the list of things to do was eat. So we found this little, very authentic type, Japanese restaurant in the mall interior. We went inside and got our menus and I started going through it, wondering what to get. I saw Ramen on the menu but dared not try it, fearing it might be instant. As I continued to look, Michelle quickly ordered the Sushi, Sashimi and Tempura plate. I thought, "Wow, she knows her Japanese cuisine." I went ahead and ordered some curry, gyoza (deep fried pot stickers) and california rolls.

After the food arrived, and we began eating, I noticed that Michelle hadn't touched her main plate. I finally decided to ask her about it. "I thought it was going to be cooked." She said, clearly very embarrassed. It turns out that she didn't know her Japanese cuisine. She looked at the picture, thought it looked good, and ordered it.



I made a joke that she should tell the waitress, "Take this back in the back and fry it up right!" She laughed, but clearly as the meal wore on she was concerned that the waitress was noticing she hadn't touched her plate. She kept pointing out that the waitress was watching. Personally, I think the waitress was just doing her normal duty to make sure we didn't need anything, but Michelle was self conscious about her plate now. I told her that since we were in a Japanese restaurant here in the RP it was probably a common mistake. Surely she couldn't be the first. I don't know if that helped, but she finally broke the news to the waitress. She used my joke too.

In the end, I guess it was a good thing I didn't dare try the Ramen. The curry I ordered was instant. Luckily for me, Japanese instant curry is awesome. Still, you wouldn't get that at a restaurant in Japan. I mean, the entire thing comes in a silver pack, you boil it, open it and pour it over rice. When I had access to Asian food stores I used to eat it quite a bit.

Later on we contemplated going to see Hancock or Wanted at the fairly large cinema in SM Mall. We chose not too, but it was pretty tempting. I will definitely go see one of these sometime soon. We instead went to a place called Ice Castle, and it's all about ice cream. Here Michelle did it again. They had a sundae called the Macedonia which she saw in the picture and ordered. Luckily this time her choice worked out and it was very good. I had an Oreo Cookie parfet and it was quite amazing. The place has ice cream, sundae's, shakes, parfets, splits, all kinds of toppings, including tropical fruits of the island, and more. I will have to visit again sometime. Maybe I'll try looking at the pictures and trying something new next time.

I was at Ayala mall again today, this time primarily to get a load card on my phone and to just generally people watch. It's pretty amazing to be the stranger in a strange land and see how people look at and treat you. Of course, they say there are far more women here than men, some say 9 to 1, or something like that, and while I don't know if this is true, it is easy to believe considering the reaction I get from women when I walk around the mall. Yes, there is a lot of interest.

Koreans are everywhere. I remember the first night I went to a disco, it seemed to be half Koreans there. I later found out that the particular disco I went to was Korean owned, but still they are just about everywhere else I go too. They are usually very young, mostly students who go to the Philippines to study English, because of the low cost and it is widely spoken here. The thing I notice about the Koreans is that they are BIG. Most Asians are rather small compared to westerners, but all these Koreans, even the girls are taller than me! They are not exactly thin either. They all have some meat on 'em! I think the home diet must have changed much in the last twenty years. I used to hang with a lot of Koreans in college and they were small and thin like most other Asians back then.



Outside the mall, I met two African guys, one from Sudan and the other from Somalia. Apparently they work part of the year in Saudi Arabia and other parts of the middle east, and then spend the rest of their time living it up in the Philippines. I have heard of this strategy before, from a guy from the Ukraine. He worked for 6 months, or so, in Saudi Arabia and made a truck load of money and then enjoyed the other half of the year traveling.

These Sudanese guy told me that you work when you do this strategy though, so it is not for the lazy. He said you may work almost 24/7 but they are short contracts, in the middle east, and the pay is astronomical. I mean you can make more than most hope to make in a year. The Sudanese guy had been doing this for six years now. The Somalian guy said that when you get a work permit in The United Arab Emirates, it is just like being in the EU. You can travel and work freely anywhere in the UAE and many other parts of the middle east, and they all pay well. The Sudanese guy said, though, don't go to Saudi Arabia. It is very strict and no night life to speak of. The Somalian said if you are muslim you can do well in Saudi, but otherwise he agreed.

When I asked them if it was hot there, they winced. They said in the summer it can get up to 53゜C there. That's 127.4゜F for those in the U.S.. The typical 90゜days here must be nothing to them. They seemed to know a lot about the clubs and the local music scene, and also about Manilla, and the scene there. They said that Manilla really isn't much more expensive than here and that it is worth checking out. Each day I realize that I have barely even begun to scratch the surface here.

I've had a number of different food experiences during my time here. Even though I mostly stick to Chinese food, I have started to sample some variety with very good results. Pictured above is a mix. One dish is traditionally Chinese, basically Yang Chow fried rice, and the other is a Filipino dish called Lechon Kawali. Filipino food may not be the healthiest cuisine on the planet but it can be so good! Lechon Kawali can best be described as bacon that is about as thick as it is wide. It has lots of fat on it. It is amazingly good! Lots of deep fried foods and lots of butter. What more could one ask for?!

Earlier today this girl took me to a Vietnamese and Thai cuisine place. That had to be some of the best food I have eaten since I been here. I had ribs among other things and even though my phone was with me, I never though to snap a pic of the spread we had before us. Pad Thai, BBQ pork skewers, fried rice, Tom Kha Khai soup, and probably a thing or two I am forgetting. Now this was an expensive joint at the mall, and we probably got enough food for five people, but it still didn't cost half what I spend on myself alone at Wokcano in Burbank. Most meals will run you less than $2.

Not everything is Asian style food though. Next door to me is a little coffee shop that serves American style breakfast stuff, eggs and waffles and the like. They also have these spicy hungarian sausages that are really good. Fried chicken is everywhere, even without the need for KFC which is out in force in this town. Half a fried chicken at the hotel here P95 which is $2 and a few cents. Yes that is half a chicken. For less than $4 you get the whole chicken. There is even a burger place next door, though I haven't tried it. Also, as if to make me happy, many places seem to have wings.

There are still many dishes just on the hotel menu I have yet to sample, and at least ten more places in easy walking distance. For this reason, I have decided to create a blog category for FOOD. I will report on more culinary delights as I experience them.

Ever since I got here my iPhone hasn't really worked at all, except as an iPod or WIFI device. No phone and no SMS. SMS is everything around here. Even to activate my Smart modem, it is assumed you have a phone capable of SMS in order to do so. I had to have someone do it for me. As I may have mentioned in another post, phones are cheap here. I have seen phones which boast greater features than the iPhone, although without the cool touch screen, for $89 or so. They even have full video recording. A simple phone would cost me a mere $30 if I just wanted to be up and running. I was all set to do it, but then a new question came to mind.

If my iPhone is serving no real purpose here, what have I really got to lose by trying one of the many software hacks to jailbreak it or unlock it? If successful, I could pop in any $10 local SIM card and have local phone and SMS service just like that. I went to Junrex, a popular cell phone store, to ask about it and to buy a cheap local SIM. When they knew what I wanted it for, they said they could unlock the iPhone for me, but it would cost P2500 and take 3 days. I figured I could do it all myself. So off I went.



Finding the right software to do it is another story. There are so many, and some seem downright complex. They talk of reverting iTunes to older versions, and then reverting the iPhone firmware to older versions. After you jailbreak it, you apparently have to upgrade the firmware and then do it all again until you get to the latest. This was all starting to make me think I should have just let Junrex handle it. Eventually, though, I found Ziphone. This tool promised one click operation no matter your iTunes or firmware versions. On top of that, it's free!

I put my new SIM into my iPhone and naturally the Phone and iTunes both complained. Still, with it connected, I clicked the button on Ziphone. A bunch of numbers flashed across my iPhone screen and then all went dark. After a moment, the Apple logo appeared. When the phone booted up this time, it said SMART in the corner next to my four signal bars instead of AT&T. I went to the store next door to put a P500 load on my new SIM card and then decided to text someone to see if it was all working. When she responded, I knew I had it made. So I spent the day texting up a storm and will continue to do so from this point!

Well, if you read of my internet ordeals yesterday, you may know that they are all over! Having finally figured out how things work with this SMART BRO wireless modem, since they weren't exactly explained in the documentation, I was able to get everything worked out and I am finally online. The solution, as I mentioned yesterday, had me returning to Ayala Mall, which I confirmed is, in fact, five levels of shopping goodness. I learned yesterday that a company called Junrex was an authorized reseller of SMART products and that they would be able to put the load on my SIM card. Turns out it was an amazingly easy process. Almost a shame that I let something so simple and so small stand in the way of my being online earlier.

I walked into Junrex and, at first, decided to be amazed for a while by the many different cell phones available. I will talk about that at length in a moment. After browsing the phones for a while, I finally went up to the front desk to ask about loading my SIM. She simply asked for my number which, even though I had it memorized, I had on the card that came with the SIM. She took my card and punched a few numbers on her phone and then turned the phone to me to show me the confirmation of my 1500 minute load. I paid my P500 and it was done. It was that easy, and will be for all future loads.



At that point I could have come home, but I remembered that there was this place I wanted to eat at. The night before, I saw a commercial on TV in the downstairs restaurant, during some type of karaoke game show, for a Chinese food joint called Chow King. The commercial was really cool showing a super skilled chef throwing rice around with lots of fire everywhere. So, in Ayala Mall, I walked past the huge dine-in KFC and the nearby Pizza Hut to enter Chow King. On the wall was a large poster for Chow Fan (fried rice) including spicy chicken and beef and, my favorite, Yang Chow. I ate Yang Chow fried rice the other night so I walked up to the counter, like in a fast food joint, and ordered the spicy chicken and beef. They said it wasn't available. I went with regular beef fried rice. For a mere 20 pesos you can add what they call a topping. I chose something called Lumpiang Shanghai, which looks like egg rolls, but are filled with pork like a pot sticker. Altogether the meal as about $2.00 with a bottled water, and it wasn't bad. It wasn't China by any means, but still pretty good.

Satisfied with my meal, it was now time to find my way out of this maze. As I searched for an end to the bright and busy corridors, I ran across something I had completely forgotten about. It was the Ayala Mall Mac Store. I remembered finding their webpage just a couple of days before going to the Philippines. I went in and was surprised to see it was no different than the many Apple stores in Los Angeles. They had everything I might want should I need to expand my Mac gear. I got a price sheet from them just to see how things compared. Now, while most things are incredibly cheap in the Philippines, imported, western technology, especially from America, seems to be very expensive, more so than buying it at home. Now I knew about this from the forums I have read about the Philippines, but I was pleasantly surprised to find it wasn't nearly as bad as some made it out to be. Even though I have read claims of things being as much as double the price of their American counterparts, most items were only $200 - $500 more than the Apple store list price. When you're talking about a $2000 or $3000 item, thats not an outrageous price increase. It does, however, bring to mind a serious question.

What will become of the iPhone in the Philippines, or Asia in general? I can now totally understand why Apple lowered the price of the new 3G iPhone, but because of the import taxes that appear when these items go to Asia, it will go up in price on this end. The problem is, when I looked at phones in the many mobile stores, I was surprised to find that, while the iPhone may be a top contender in the U.S., in Asia, it's just another phone. Sadly, there are phones that cost less than half that price that have the same features, not counting the innovative touch screen. What may spell trouble for the iPhone, though, are what the higher caliber phones can do. Phones in the iPhone price range come with, not a mere 2 megapixel camera like Apple's flagship mobile product, but a 5 megapixel camera, and many can shoot full video. They have the same internet and web features with the advantage that 3G networks are actually available all over Asia. Many phones are clearly made to watch TV and pick up radio, aside from having storage enough for music and video on board. They have real GPS in their map systems and many boast some pretty big and high resolution screens. I think Apple will be given a run for their money by companies like Nokia, Samsung and Sony in the far east.

Anyway, now that I am back online, it is time to get down to some serious writing. I got a few freelance writing gigs while offline during my trip, and so there's work to do. It's time to make some money to keep the adventure going!


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Ayala Mall is huge! I don't remember if it was four or five stories. I got lost in it on numerous occasions. But why was I there? I remember hearing rumors that there existed wireless 3G modems, not much larger than a credit card, that you can plug into a USB port, giving you cellular internet access anywhere you can find a signal. The 3G standard is alleged to reach speeds of up to 2 Mbps, which would explain why people in Japan and Korea are already watching live video broadcasts and doing video chat on their cellphones. So I woke up today with a mission to prove the existence of these modems, and if it were true, and in a reasonable price range like most things here, I would get one, forever solving my internet woes.

I hopped into a taxi and took the trip down to Ayala Mall, for a price just over a $1.00. I walked into this mega structure and immediately thought to myself, even if these things do exist, how will ever find them in here? This place was beyond belief. Multiple levels, Bright Lights, a huge food court, KFC, Pizza Hut, Shakey's Pizza, McDonalds, they were all there. Now there are probably places just as big or bigger in L.A., I just didn't make it out to see them. I remember The Galleria was pretty amazing. The mall fresh in my memory, though, is the Fashion Show mall in Sherman Oaks, which is where I bought my iPhone. That mall is a corner plaza compared to Ayala Mall.



So I searched around this place looking at all manner of amazing sites. The mall seemed mainly fashion oriented, but there were some technology stores. Plasma screens, video games, cellphones, computers, there was a lot to look at and sift through. Finally I decided to ask someone, and he explained that they don't have that type of thing, meaning the 3G modem, in this place and that I would have to go to this other even bigger mall. (He was wrong, though, but that's another story.)

So off to the, even bigger, SM Mall I went. I passed by this one on the drive in from the airport so I knew of its scope and scale. Seeing a huge building from the outside, though, is no comparison to getting lost multiple times on the inside. Eventually I found a huge area called The Cyberzone. This was where all the geeky stuff was to be found, even though this mall, on the whole was much more technology oriented than Ayala Mall. In here I found the SMART store I was looking for, SMART being the company that I eventually discovered to be the maker this rumored modem. It was real. It cost about $89 and so, after much hassle, I bought it and took it home.

By the time I arrived at home I was starving. I had to eat something. I went to the downstairs restaurant and they were taking a "time out". One thing to note about the Philippines is that it is very laid back. I guess if the cook has something better to do, there's no cooking going on. The lady at the front desk directed me to the restaurant next door. So I walked outside and around the corner to this little cafe next door. Inside, I see numerous people on laptops and hand held devices. Some are even doing Skype and streaming video. Sure enough, this place has WIFI and apparently very fast WIFI too. They're also open pretty much all day. If I had known this, I could have simply taken the couple of steps next door and had high speed internet yesterday. If it wasn't raining, I'd go there right now and upload these two posts. But wait a minute! What about the modem I just bought?

Well, I plugged the modem in and it worked! I didn't find a 3G signal to connect, but I did find a signal and I was on the internet! I went to speedtest.net to see just how fast it was and I got the results you see on the left. The 384 Kbps range ain't bad for cellular that will work anywhere and anytime. But the story doesn't stop there with a happy ending. You see, like many such services here, this was a prepay cellular service. You basically buy "loads" to put on your SIM card and then talk or surf until you use it up. I bought a 900 Minute load card to go with my modem, which came with 30 free minutes, probably to give you ample time to set it up. Sadly, I neglected to ask how you activate this load card. Reading the instructions on the back of the card, it is assumed that you have a cellphone. My iPhone, being locked to AT&T, doesn't work here except as a WIFI device. To activate the card, I needed to send an SMS message to their activation service.

I experienced it. I got to play with it! I got to feel it! All for about thirty minutes. Then my time was up. Tomorrow I must return to Ayala Mall because, while there is no SMART store in there, I, at least, learned there is an authorized reseller called Junrex. There I will get my load card properly activated, and this story will, hopefully, be at an end, a happy end.


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Yesterday, I finally arrived in Cebu Philippines and got settled in my quaint little room, but that's not the beginning of this story. After landing, I took a nice, big, black SUV from the Mactan Island airport to the joint I was originally planning to stay at. This fairly long SUV ride cost me about 475 pesos, which equates to about $10.00 USD. For comparison, I also took a nice, big, black SUV from my apartment in Los Angeles to the airport there. That cost about $80.00 USD. As to why I am not at that first stopping point, it all boils down, once again, to internet. The internet speed there was excruciatingly slow. Luckily for me, I didn't prepay my reservation, so I decided to move on.

I researched quite a few locations to stay at before leaving L.A., and even though I didn't have access to my list, one of them stuck in my memory. Something about their website caught me and said, "This is the one," yet for some reason I chose to ignore that still small voice and go somewhere else. Well, now was my chance to correct that mistake. I went to the place still tugging at my memory and checked into the room pictured above. They had internet! They even had high speed internet. Unfortunately, thanks to the recent storm, it was down at the moment. I thought about leaving to continue my search, but something still said that this was the place. I chose to stay.



When I got settled into the room and ate at the downstairs restaurant, I knew I had made the right choice. Of course, eating a great meal for just over $1.00 will do that. Still I knew I like the place. That just left the solving of my internet issues as the final hurdle to totally settling in. I already had a few ideas on just how to do that, but as usual, in this place, there's a solution around every corner.


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