Friday, July 20, 2007

bohollomo goes to digiprint MoA

For a meeting in Surigao this weekend (National Anti-Poverty Commission Youth and Students Council – Sectoral Council Meeting), I had to take a Tagbilaran-Manila plane ride to catch a PAL flight to Butuan City tomorrow where we drive to Surigao City. Sayang man gud ang miles. It was incredulous, I know, making Manila my stopover for my Surigao trip, inconvenient and costly, but, it also gave me the chance to go to a digiprint shop. The MoA branch was the nearest I knew from the airport.

Hunched by my heavy backpack (with my heavy laptop), I lumbered aimlessly in the vast mall, looking for digiprint. A text from my brother said I was at the wrong side of the mall. I vaguely remember how I got from the south end of MoA to its north end, I was famished, I just arrived from a one-hour flight from Tagbilaran, I was a Boholano in Manila. But the sight of the digiprint logo easily wiped off all my weariness. The transaction was relatively smooth, the guy behind the counter knew what he had to know. I only paid P245 for my four film rolls. I opted to have it sent back home, though I will be marooned in Surigao City until Monday. Another reason to long for home, I guess.

(North Susana Heights, Quezon City.)

Wednesday, July 18, 2007

I have to stop my yakking.

I meant for this blog to be a lomo (photo) blog. And it will be. But until I’m still unable to produce my first ‘real’ lomo pictures, my yakking will carry on, or – have an empty blog. Besides, I will have my pictures very soon. I already had them processed.

Exactly the whole point of this post. Shit. I went to hell and back just to have my 120 film developed.

Went to LBC-ICM (a mere 4-minute drive from my house) Monday afternoon to digiprint my 120s, thus far I’ve used up, 5 of them. Confident that it’ll all go smoothly, and more importantly cheaply. Assumption no. 1: false. The lady behind the counter had no idea how to go about it. Film to CD, I said. And also, my films were 120s. Her computer indicated none of that service. Calls were made. I was even made to talk to the voice at the other end of the line. And in Tagalog, too. Damn. Then it was them again, the LBC girl talking in heavy Bisayan-accented Tagalog. Apparently, the LBC-Tagbilaran’s system was not updated blah-blah-blah. Eventually, after an hour at the LBC, I was asked of my contact number and was told to come back the next day, or whenever they’d contact to tell me they were ready.

The call was made a little past eight that night. I came back to LBC-ICM early the next morning. The girl manning the branch became a dude. I had to explain it all over to him. Calls were again made. And when finally, he figured it out, shit, I had to pay 250 for each film. I had 5, so that’s 1,250. WTF? I thought it was just gonna be 275, or something nearer that amount, was it not what they said in the forums? I texted Jennie, she confirmed the lower price. But the LBC-dude (she was a girl yesterday, I swear) said they didn’t have that pricing/billing, probably in the digiprint branches but not in LBC. It was 250 for developing+printing+film-cd fee. I was unwilling to shell out that amount because (1) I was not confident with my photos and didn’t want all of them printed (2) I had the money but didn’t want it spent on this (3) I was pissed. But not enough to leave the LBC without transacting anything. I felt I had to after taking so much of their time. I handed him 1 film and P250.

I really have to go to Manila.