What could it be this time...

For once in my life what bothered me the past week was something I was used to, but didn't want to happen. Sure, I was soooo close to getting pneumonia, but I fought that off as hard as I could. So my laptop battery now has a 1 hour battery life, instead of the 2 it was before the laptop was loaned to me (how am I going to explain that to the owner >_>). Oh, and I think I lost a few pounds, but allllll of that doesn't hold a candle to the shitty behavior of my wireless carrier, who without notice took down much of their data network offline with nary a warning or alert. You know what pisses me off? They spam you all they want with their so called "advisories" when it's just tricks to getting you to waste your top up load.

I know, ranting about my wireless carrier is old news and a pointless effort on my part. Sure, I'm happy I avoided pneumonia, did you know I was told that usually old folks in their 60's and 70's have a higher chance of being afflicted with that, and here I was, not even 30 years old and I'm like a 60 year old? I wasn't laughing when I heard that, and I'm glad I was warned about it and fought it as hard as I could. I coughed out more than 1 cup of fluid straight out of my lungs, the most strangest thing I ever done in my life (you'll know it's bad when blood starts to come out). I honestly thought this was a cold, and I know someone who had pneumonia before, but I didn't know what the symptoms were because I hadn't seen that person much before they were treated for it. And all that coughing I've been doing for the past year? Yep, I gotta say I was very close to being killed by my ignorance. Good to have some folks around you to tell you about things you usually would shrug off.

And about this laptop, I'm a little wary of how I use it these days. I'm being a bit more careful than I usually am, because I tell you it's weird conversations with the owner, they go a little something like this:

"Hey dude, I didn't know your laptop can play Crysis 2!"

*silence*

Talk about awkward.

Back to my wireless carrier, I am absolutely furious at their behavior. Why is it different this time? Well, I had a 30 day data plan activated before their network went kaput (that's 999 peso, just a little over $20 USD), and I know it went kaput because my 3G USB broadband dongle was picking up DEAD signals from the cell tower in the next town, my phone was absolutely refusing to lock onto a 3G signal, and no one else in my area had better luck. This is especially retarded when their EDGE network was also rendered useless, which used to be a fallback band to use in case 3G/HSDPA was down. With 3G and EDGE both inoperable, I was irate. My anime and manga email and web browsing, halted because some network thinks it's a good time to fix their network? (at least I think they are fixing it). What pisses me off is that when money is plunked down on their network, and they pull shit like this, you have no way of getting your money back (they still haven't returned my money lost earlier this year due to a gaff in their network they clearly acknowledged was their fault and said they would refund within 24 hours which they never did). I even opened up a customer service chat that they have for free via SMS, and those shit bastards cut me off the moment the rep went on.

You know what pisses me off most of all? Why don't the citizens in this country stand up to these corporations that suck up their daily life? The damn network was down for more than a week! If this kind of stunt was pulled in the USA, you can bet there would be a public flogging of the network and that FCC would probably fine the company. I'm not even asking these people to waste their time doing rallys and what not, these people are heavy on Facebook, why don't they band together and do some public movement that would embarrass the shit out of this company, and it might actually get their stupid President off his lawsuiting butt and take action.

But that's the sad thing about the Philippines. No one stands up to these corporations. No one says anything, and the public doesn't give two shits and a rats ass because for some dumb silly reason, nobody wants to say anything! And I know what I'm saying, I want to do something but I'm not a citizen of this country. I look through the undernet of the Philippine forums, and there's a lot of members who voice their discontent over these networks and their destructive ways. And that's one of the problems: these folks hide away in these forums, complaining all they want about the costs of 3G internet being too high, but WHAT THE FUCK DOES THAT EVEN MATTER when all they are doing is hiding behind these forums. Go on Facebook! Voice your discontent on Twitter! Bloody do something out there that the media can pick up on, and report on, and get it nationally recognized that holy cheese whiz there's a problem with these wireless carriers and something must be done! Not even the two most recognizable tech blogs in this country even mentions these network outages, which I know is not just my area, it goes as far as Quezon City.

This is why there is hardly a USA investor in this country. The nerve of this country to try and bring Korean investors into here, the corruption is just going to eat them alive. I have one job to do with this country, and if the people will not stand and fight for a better way of life, there is no point in giving them that better way of life.

Sorry for the rant, but it's frustrating. So much poverty in this country, with corporations making millions while the average citizen slaves away at paltry wages. The Philippines can be a great country, but no one is making an effort to make it so. I'm going to continue doing what I can behind the scenes, as my position allows me to. But someone who isn't even a citizen of this country can only do so much. This country needs to change from within, not from the outside.