Occasional Tales

Eventually. I thought I'd try getting a VGA cable so that I could connect the laptop to the new TV. I found what I was looking for in Metro, but I wasn't absolutely certain I should be buying a male-male cable. I returned home and found that I was right, but I'd also noticed that the cable at Metro had a damaged end. I decided to try Yonghui Supermarket, but they didn't have any. I knew that there was another branch of Gome in the vicinity which I found by luck rather than certain knowledge. Once I managed to convey to them what I wanted (I had the manual with me, but they still seemed unable to grasp initially that I wanted a VGA cable), I was informed that they didn't have any. Huh? This is Gome. It's an electronics shop. I returned home and then headed to the branch of Gome on the mainland where the same thing happened, but with none of the what-the-hell-does-the- laowai -want-in-spite-of-a-Chinese-manual routine. They sent me to 大利 which turned out to be op...

Could I be more humiliated? I can now watch the DVD player through the TV. I could've fixed the problem myself as I discovered when I looked at the manual again, but I relied on the diagram for information. I can read enough of the Chinese to know exactly which lead should've been plugged in to which socket. Actually, I should be able to wire up the external speakers as well. Right now, I'm feeling dumber than Class 13. I'm going to be charitable and suppose that this is due to being woken up early on a few too many occasions this week, and feeling flustered by various events that have happened this week and are yet to come. Thus I'm tired, and when I get tired my concentration flies out the window. It's either this excuse or the other one. The one I'd rather not contemplate. The one where I'm descending into the Slough of Stupidity which, I've observed, seems to affect middle-aged people. Not that I'm middle-aged yet. [ Keep telling yourself th...

Never lie at a right angle. Today started strangely. I woke up some time after dawn and found that I turned myself 90° during the night so that my head was now pointing towards the window. Logical conclusion: it was the earthquake disrupting the earth's magnetic field. [ Hark at Mr Compass . –ed.] I got to school just before 9am, but with time for the delivery of the TV running out before I had to go to class, I got Tracy to phone Gome. I learnt that they don't start work until 9am, which meant a 9am delivery was never going to happen. Then while I was pretending to teach Class 13, there was a knock at the door. It was Tracy who needed to get the delivery receipt. Then during the next class I got a text message saying that the TV was in the gatehouse. I got it home and plugged everything in. Could I get the DVD player to run through it? No. I got some message saying "No sync detected", which means as much to me as the same message in Chinese. I went back to Gome with...