about the talking fish

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Writer. Wheelman. Occasional DIY mechanic. Walking collection of hang-ups. Hopeless romantic. Old-school. Analog soul in a digital world. I am all of these things and more.

Saturday, March 24, 2007

Wanted: music while driving.

I made the jaunt this morning to the official Kenwood service center in San Francisco del Monte, Quezon City. I went there to have the Jazz's car stereo checked, especially due to its inability to read any CDs.

I left home at 9 a.m. and got there at 10:30. The Saturday morning traffic was unbelievable in some parts, particularly the Sta. Mesa leg I drove through. All through the 34-kilometer trip to the shop, I drove with the audio head unit off, as a preparation for the amount of time I won't have it.

As it turns out I have to leave the stereo with them for a week. That means for that amount of time, there's a gaping hole in my dashboard where my stereo used to be. Peering into it yields a glimpse of what's on the passenger side of the engine firewall: part of the wiring loom, the ducts for external air for the aircon, and the chassis crossmembers that keep the dashboard where it is.

For one week I don't have anything to distract me from the idiocy of other drivers either. Sure, I've had nothing but smooth jazz to listen to for almost two months, but it's better than twiddling thumbs in traffic.

Figuring out how to dismantle the Jazz's dashboard to gain access to the head unit itself was a learning experience for me and the technicians, though. It was more so for them than myself, because due to the awkward location of the screws, they ended up losing one of them in the innards of the dashboard. It took another dismantling to locate it.

Driving again with nothing but the thrum of the engine and the whine of the aircon blower as background music, my next stop was Glorietta in Makati. Sony happened to have a summer promo going on for all its stuff and I once again laid eyes on that CDX-GT460US Xplod head unit I wanted, the cheapest model with aux-in (Ipod) and USB connections up front.

"Cheapest" unfortunately translates to PhP10,000. Oh well. If repairing the Kenwood unit isn't worth it I might as well save up for that one.

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