The Great Rock Band Local Tour

Impatience. It can be a virtue. It can be turned into a drive to achieve something that you REALLY REALLY want.

Kei has been paining to get his own Rock Band set. Sadly, it's been region-locked, and cannot be played locally unless you own a US region XBOX 360. And yeah, he's looked into a lot of ways into playing it on his 360, but to no avail. After gleaning on some local forums, he decided to sell off his XBOX 360 just so he can get himself a US version.

It was a Saturday at `Da Bunker when he brought out his newly-bought Rock Band instruments set and his second-hand XBOX 360. Maybelle had lent Kei a nice sum of cash for it, too, just so he could get the instruments and play it ASAP. Yeah the Rock Band had drums and a mic, and since Kei already bought an XBOX 360 guitar controller, he now had two (which were perfect for lead guitar and bass). I was demoing WARMACHINE to Maybelle when they started playing. When my demo was done (I lost BTW LOL), I had to try that Stratocaster controller.

Then suddenly, the damn thing blurted out "Unreadable Disc" on any games you put in it.

So Kei has to reluctantly call up the seller and asked for his money back (which I assume was done promptly).

Sunday rolled on by, and Kei had gotten hold of a new XBOX 360 (from another seller online). He suggested that he pick me and Barby up, head on to his place, play Rock Band, and just head on to work the next day straight from his place. We got to his place around 4PM. Kei set up his stuff and propped in his Rock Band DVD in the XBOX 360 unit.

The depressing message saying "disc is not this region" kept coming up when the Rock Band DVD was placed.

Maybe it was a mix of the heat outside and the realization that the unit Kei got was NOT a US version, but when I kept reading that message, my head just swam.

Trusty cell phone in hand, Kei called the second seller up, explaining his problem. I also realized how calm (*cough* plastic *cough*) Kei had been with the call. I'd have been combative already, but he was trying to be civil. It was really annoying that the dude was even asking for P500 just because he went "out of his way" to deliver the unit, explaining it was gas expense or some such shit (even moreso annoying when he tried haggling the said amount).

After some badgering, I managed to convince Kei to meet up with the guy that very moment to return his unit. Forget repair checkups. The guy might go and say that the deal would be void if we opened up the unit. With some further badgering, Kei surfed again and looked for other sellers of a damned US version unit.

It turns out that the guy THOUGHT it was a US version because it managed to play some version of NBA. OMG! I don't own an XBOX 360 and I would've checked all the specifics before posting anything! Assuming the worst, I thought that if Kei had agreed to meeting the guy for the exchange on a later date, he'd just have another excuse NOT to return Kei's money.

So the guy texted Kei his home address, and we forcefully agreed to meet him at his home to save him the "inconvenience" of having to meet us elsewhere. And damn it was in Tondo! We've all heard the horror stories of that place, but hey, my baby sister was born in a hospital there. The people there looked the way you'd expect them to look, but they generally didn't bother me when I was there.

And it was a grueling trip there indeed! We had to ask Trisha's (a niece?) boyfriend, which in turn, was a sad sorry excuse for directions! We were supposed to find a church named Santa Monica in the midst of the Tondo jungle. The journey started at 8PM Sunday evening, and we were lost the moment we hit Manila. After some semi-random wandering at a big street which name I forgot now, I had Kei hit the enemrgency lights and park. I walked over to the nearest person I saw to ask for specific directions.

The dude was a vulcanizing shop employee. But he didn't smell like a vulcanizing shop employee because at that moment he was scrubbing his hands with soap. If some pestering with exacting questions, he directed me to his boss inside the shop - which surprisingly had a road map booklet! With some further exacting questions (and having Kei step out of the vehicle to see for himself), we had precise bearings as where to go.

We came upon an insanely crowded side street which pretty much had space for one vehicle and a pedestrian walk path. And somewhere in that mess was the seller's house!

Transaction was done in about fifteen minutes. Kei had to demo what region versions were to the guy, Apparently he had a DOA game which was US version and DID NOT play on his console. The message came up (the regional thing) and the exchange was done.

In the car, Kei made a call to the other seller, which we had to meet somewhere in Alabang!

Off we went to Alabang, but after a quick dinner at a Chowking LOL! The trip was relatively faster than I expected - probably because it was an ungodly hour to be driving then. We got to a gas station (Gatorade stop for me) and Kei called to confirm where we were this this new seller. We met the dude at a Jollibee near Zapote road, and the "shady dealing" was done. Finally, after a few more minutes of driving through all of that road, we were back at Kei's place.

Moment of truth - will the bloody goddamn Rock Band work now?

It did.

And we were happy.

^_^