any kid of the 80s who had little distraction save for patintero and television would doubtless be familiar with, among other things, saturday fun machine, ALF, and macgyver. macgyver, as we all know, was the genius -- a living swiss army knife -- who could do anything. and i mean anything. i idolized him, mainly because i'm very very useless around anything mechanical. despite all my intelligence, i had no gift for taking things apart and putting them back together. i couldn't fix anything, and rarely dared try.

so when my bike was sidelined by a flat tire which wasn't solved by a handheld pump, i was left with no choice but to bring the wheel to a bike shop, where possibly the interior would be replaced. but before that i had another problem: how do you even remove the wheel? i've encountered this problem before when we were in bataan, but all i did was give my bike to rendo and dyake and they were both more than excited to work on it. i would rather read a book than get my hands dirty. that's what mechanics are for!

however, frustrated that i've been spending more for taxis even for short trips, consuming expensive fuel, and contributing to pollution this past month, i decided to put things into my own hands and give it a try. i had a spare interior under my bed and figured: how hard could it be? i unscrewed by front wheel, lost a spring in the process, and proceeded to remove the tire to replace the interior. at first i thought i could just yank it out but it was harder than i thought. i was looking for something like a spatula to help me remove the tire. of course the knife wasn't an option, and my wooden bookmarks would break even under just a little pressure. i finally found the solution in a bottle opener.

i successfully pried out my tire, and inserted the interior. i was hoping to just reverse the process. it was not that easy and i hurt my fingers. but after trying harder and not giving up, the interior found itself inside the tire, and i was pumping air into it! i managed to find the missing spring under my bed, and returned the wheel into the bike. now all that's left to do is to actually try it out and see if i don't get into a major accident. haha. i feel so accomplished. what the mind can conceive, the body can achieve.

update

i just took my bike for a short ride to alliance francaise and back. didn't have any problems with the flat tire. had no accident. i'm amazed that i managed to fix it on my own. haha.

Tags: 80s, jack of all trades

is the word that best describes my experience watching "transformers" yesterday. i don't think i've ever been this happy with a movie since "300". i was totally glued to the big screen, with mouth slightly agape, seeing a childhood fantasy come to life. my generation, those born between 1973 till about 1979, has been fascinated by a string of afternoon and weekend cartoons of the 80s (it was the saturday fun machine, if i remember correctly), which included cult classics and also a few largely unremembered serieses, such as voltes V, GI joe, silverhawks, thundercats, tigersharks, voltron, astro boy, he-man, she-ra, mazinger-z, rainbow brite, richie rich, superfriends, bionic six, robotech, the jetsons, the care bears, shazam!, visionaries, the smurfs, garfield and friends, shirt-tales, mighty man and yukk, ghostbusters, inspector gadget, plastic man, the inhumanoids, the flintstones, scooby doo, etc.

some of these have been made into live-action movies, with little success. macaulay culkin's turn in richie rich was forgettable, there was a B-rated he-man movie, the flintstones and scooby doo were fun, i suppose, and so was ghostbusters and garfield. but you tend to forget everything else after michael bay presented us with amazing camera angles and fantastic action scenes that closed down city blocks, destroyed buildings, and blew up many cars, tanks, planes, and helicopters! megatron is gone but i'd so want to have a follow-up. preferably with the dinobots as well ("me, grimlock!").

i just wanted to jump for joy when i heard optimus prime say "autobots, roll out!" although it should have been "autobots, transform and roll out!" the transforming sound was music! love this movie! i want to see it again. and optimus prime's voice! his proclivity for speeches and his tendency to be overly upright was just absolutely faithful. it looks strange, actually, for a warrior race, but it's true to the cartoon series. but why was bumble bee a chevrolet camaro? haha. shia labeouf was perfect for the role of sam witwicky. this kid's an amazing actor, i can't wait to see "disturbia". i loved the humor of the film, especially the part where they tried to hide themselves at the witwicky household. rich! oh, and i clapped at the end of the movie. yeah.

wonder which 80s cartoons should hit the big screen next?

Tags: 80s, cartoons, movie, nostalgia, transformers