Some stuff I'll miss when I'm working already

After visiting the Job Expo, doing the rounds of the company booths and application forms and deciding to call it a day around noon, I decided to go to Glorietta.

There I decided to have my badminton racket re-strung at Toby’s Sports; I’ve been playing with Aileen and Mabel for a couple Sundays now and I plan on playing regularly again. They said I’d get it back by 3:30. Great, I had a few hours to kill.
===

Aware of my need for more exercise (having my present waistline is a total bummer), I decided to expend my free games on Dance Maniax and hone my skills on Initial D—the usual. A couple of young hotshots were on the Initial D machines and they seemed to know their stuff really well. MAMMY and D4 (the guys’ nicks on their game cards) were tearing up Akina’s downhill on back-to-back time trials, applying the exotic techniques I’ve only read about on the Internet (such as “eraser” shifting) to shave the last possible tenth of a second out of their time records.

MAMMY had a school uniform on, and he was unbelievably fast on a heavy R32 Nissan Skyline GT-R—a car not known for agility in the game. D4 ran a GDB Subaru Impreza and he was equally impressive on it as he was on his “D1” card, an AE86 Toyota Trueno. Figuring I could get some practice laps, I got into the other machine and ran my Mazda RX-8 for a few rounds against computer opponents.

MAMMY asked if I wanted to race. Why not, I thought. Predictably, I lost by a huge margin which got smaller (though I’m not sure how much I clawed back by my skill alone), but it was my fault as I screwed up at the start.

I asked MAMMY how he and his friend did the “eraser” technique, and the two of us got into a fairly involved conversation. They were regulars on the game and played almost a year; I’ve played for longer but more irregularly. The two hotshots gave me a few handy tips about how I could extract more speed out of my Mazda as well.

D4/D1 had to split to light a few smokes and we amicably parted ways. It was nice meeting them, knowing that there are genuinely friendly Initial D players still around today. Since they seem to frequent the area, I’m looking forward to seeing them again some time.

While I’m at it I might as well ask them what their real names are...
===

I went back to Toby’s and they told me they didn’t start tensioning the string because they found a crack on the frame of my racket. Taking a closer look it had gone almost all the way through. They offered to continue at my discretion. Since I already paid for the stringing and the labor, I changed my mind and said I might as well get a new racket and have that strung with the strings I already bought.

Fortunately there were a few rackets they were selling at a discount and I got a graphite Slazenger for PhP1,500, complete with towel grip and a gorgeous free badminton bag. The damn thing accepts higher maximum string tension, too; I had mine strung at 22 lbs. I can’t wait to try it out.
===

Just a couple hours ago I received belated graduation presents from Tita Vik and Nanay. Thank you so much!